Judge Strikes Down Pennsylvania's Same-Sex Marriage Ban

Fourteen to zip, so far. A federal judge in Harrisburg, PA has struck down the Keystone State’s ban on same-sex marriage. This is the fourteenth consecutive decision declaring state bans unconstitutional and the second this week. And it’s only Wednesday!

Judge John E. Jones III wrote in his decision that his court joins the “twelve federal courts” who decided “that all couples deserve equal dignity in the realm of civil marriage.”

Some of our citizens are made deeply uncomfortable by the notion of same-sex marriage. However, that same-sex marriage causes discomfort in some does not make its prohibition constitutional. Nor can past tradition trump the bedrock constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection….Were that not so, ours would still be a racially segregated nation according to the now rightfully discarded doctrine of ‘separate but equal’….In future generations the label same-sex marriage will be abandoned, to be replaced simply by marriage.