It only took nine days(including Labour Day) for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeal to rule, upholding the lower courts decision in WI and IN. The decision was unanimous and authored by Judge Posner. In his 40 page opinion he rips(ok not a legal term) the two states to sherds.
I am not a lawyer, but am sure one will go into the legalese of the decision.
Judge Posner keeps coming back to benefit marriage provides for the children of gay couples. A little more below the orange thingamajig.
Besides going into the history of discrimination against homosexuals. He writes
Because homosexuality is not a voluntary condition and homosexuals are among the most stigmatized, misunderstood, and discriminated-against minorities in the history of the world, the disparagement of their sexual orientation, implicit in the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, is a source of continuing pain to the homosexual community. Not that allowing same-sex marriage will change in the short run the negative views that many Americans hold of same-sex marriage. But it will enhance the status of these marriages in the eyes of other Americans, and in the long run it may convert some of the opponents of such marriage by demonstrating that homosexual married couples are in essential respects, notably in the care of their adopted children, like other married couples.
The ruling repeats over and over how the children of gay couple need the protection of marriage. He really turns the states argument that marriage, for straight couples is because only straight couple can have children, on its head.
At oral argument the state‘s lawyer was asked whether “Indiana’s law is about successfully raising children,” and since “you agree same-sex couples can successfully raise children, why shouldn’t the ban be lifted as to them?” The lawyer answered that “the assumption is that with opposite- sex couples there is very little thought given during the sexual act, sometimes, to whether babies may be a consequence.” In other words, Indiana’s government thinks that straight couples tend to be sexually irresponsible, producing unwanted children by the carload, and so must be pressured (in the form of governmental encouragement of marriage through a combination of sticks and carrots) to marry, but that gay couples, unable as they are to produce children wanted or unwanted, are model parents—model citizens really—so have no need for marriage. Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.
Go Figure