Civil & Human Rights

As expected, a state court judge in Arkansas struck down that state’s ban on same-sex marriage on Friday. Somewhat unexpected, the judge did not immediately enter a stay order for the appeal that the state will file on Monday, allowing same-sex couples to wed this weekend. Arkansas judge strikes down state’s same-sex marriage ban:

A state judge in Arkansas has struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional under the federal Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

The judge wrote:

Regardless of the level of review required, Arkansas’s marriage laws discriminate against same-sex couples in violation of the Equal Protection Clause because they do not advance any conceivable legitimate state interest necessary to support even a rational basis review.

And responding to arguments that the ban was supported by a majority of voters:

Furthermore, the fact that Amendment 83 was popular with voters does not protect it from constitutional scrutiny as to federal rights. The very purpose of a bill of rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. W.Ya. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette,319 U.S. 624,638 (1943). The Constitution guarantees that all citizens have certain fundamental rights. These rights vest in every person over whom the Constitution has authority and, because they are so important, an individual’s fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections. Id. at 638.

Exactly right!

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Voting rights advocates have a victory to celebrate as the state of Pennsylvania has abandoned any appeal from the Commonwealth Court ruling striking down that states voter ID law as unconstitutional. Corbett says he won’t appeal voter ID law decision:

Gov. Tom Corbett put another nail in the coffin of Pennsylvania’s voter identification law on Thursday, announcing he would not appeal a judge’s decision that the law violated the fundamental right to vote.

The Republican governor issued a statement that defended the law, but he also said it needed changes and that he hoped to work with the Legislature on them.

“It is clear that the requirement of photo identification is constitutionally permissible,” he said. “However, the court also made clear that in order for a voter identification law to be found constitutional, changes must be made to address accessibility to photo identifications.”

The centerpiece of the law – a requirement that nearly all of the state’s 8.2 million voters show photo ID at the polls – was declared unconstitutional in January by a Commonwealth Court judge who said it imposed an unreasonable burden on the right to vote and that supporters had failed to demonstrate a need for it.

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