A federal judge today ruled that same-sex couples have a right to marry in Kentucky.
"In America, even sincere and long-hold religious beliefs do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been out-voted," U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II wrote to invalidate Kentucky's constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Heyburn in February had ruled that Kentucky must recognize gay marriages performed in other states.
Heyburn upheld the right to marry today, but put his ruling on hold pending a decision by a higher court. Heyburn rejected the only justification offered by lawyers for Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear — that traditional marriages contribute to a stable birth rate and the state's long-term economic stability.
"These arguments are not those of serious people," he said.
Heyburn held that the ban on gay marriage within Kentucky violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law and that there is "no conceivable legitimate purpose for it."
He held that the state's 2004 constitutional amendment and a similar statute enacted in 1998 deny gay couples lower income and estate taxes; leave from work under the Family and Medical Leave Act, family insurance coverage; and the ability to adopt children as a couple.
"Perhaps most importantly," he added, the Kentucky law denies same-sex couples the "intangible and and emotional benefits of civil marriage."
Heyburn stayed the ruling until the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decides gay-marriage cases from Kentucky and three other states. Oral arguments are scheduled for Aug. 6.
The ruling continues an unbroken string of decisions in which federal judges have struck down rules prohibiting gay marriage, which is now legal in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
The case was brought by Timothy Love and Lawrence Ysunza, who lived together for 34 years and were denied a marriage license on Feb. 13 by the Jefferson County Clerk's office; and Maurice Blanchard and Dominque James, who have lived together 10 years and were cited for trespassing when they refused to leave the clerk's office after being denied a license on Jan. 23, 2013. A jury later convicted them of trespassing but fined them a penny.
Heyburn noted that Love's emergency heart surgery had to be delayed last summer to prepare documents allowing Ysunza access and decision-making authority for Love.
Blanchard and James alleged that their inability to obtain parental rights as a married couple has deterred them from adopting children.
Heyburn ruled that gays are a "disadvantaged class" and deserve protection similar to women in equal protection cases. That in turn required the state to show that the Kentucky's gay marriage ban is "substantially related to an important governmental object."
But he ruled that even under a less demanding standard, lawyers for Beshear had shown "no rational relation between the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage and the commonwealth's asserted interest in promoting naturally procreative marriages."
Beshear hired an Ashland law firm to defend the law after Attorney General Jack Conway refused to do so.
Since Heyburn's February decision requiring Kentucky to recognize gay marriages, eight federal judges and one federal appeals court have invalidated state laws banning gay marriage.
