Judge Tosses Colorado's Same-Sex Marriage Ban

Another state ban on same-sex marriages has been tossed out by a federal judge. This time it's in Colorado. It marks the 16th time a federal judge has declared a state's ban to be unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.

On Wednesday, District Judge C. Scott Crabtree declared Colorado's ban unconstitutional. The judge stayed his ruling to give the state time to appeal, but that appeal would probably have to be at the United States Supreme Court. That's because Colorado is under the same appeals court as Utah (the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals), and that court recently upheld a ruling that Utah's ban was in violation of the U.S. Constitution. There is no legitimate reason why that court wouldn't decide the same for Colorado. Judge Crabtree said the marriage ban:

". . .bears no rational relationship to any conceivable government interest."

He went on to say:

"The Court holds that the Marriage Bans violate plaintiffs' due process and equal protection guarantees under the Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution." 

"The existence of civil unions is further evidence of discrimination against same-sex couples and does not ameliorate the discriminatory effect of the Marriage Bans."

"If civil unions were truly the same as marriages, they would be called marriages and not civil unions. If they were the same, there would be no need for both of them."

Utah has announced that it will appeal the appeals court decision to the United States Supreme Court. The Utah Attorney General's office released a statement saying:

"To obtain clarity and resolution from the highest court, the Utah Attorney General’s Office will not seek en banc review of the Kitchen v. Herbert Tenth Circuit decision, but will file a Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United State Supreme Court in the coming weeks. Attorney General Sean Reyes has a sworn duty to defend the laws of our state. Utah’s Constitutional Amendment 3 is presumed to be constitutional unless the highest court deems otherwise."

The United States Supreme Court has been dodging this issue for years now, but it looks like it is going to finally be forced to make a decision -- probably in the next term of the court. That means we could only be about a year away from a Supreme Court decision -- and considering their decision striking down DOMA as violating the Constitutions, I don't see how they could determine state bans are constitutional.