LGBT activists protesting in front of Supreme Court.
In a gay marriage divorce case last Tuesday, a Tennessee county judge upheld the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, making this decision the first in opposition to same-sex marriage after a surge of court decisions have been ruling in favor of it in recent months.
The plaintiffs, Frederick Michael Borman and Larry Kevin Pyles-Borman, were legally married in Iowa, a state in which same-sex marriage is legal. However, although Iowa allows individuals who reside outside of the state to become married within Iowa, they do not allow individuals to become divorced in the state unless they are residents of the state.
When the Borman couple turned to become divorced in Tennessee, their request was denied because of Tennessee’s Anti-Recognition Laws, which do not recognize their marriage as legitimate, thus making their marriage "unenforceable" in the state of Tennessee. The couple claimed that these laws are unconstitutional on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause and the Full Faith and Credit Clause in the U.S. Constitution. Circuit Court Judge Russell E. Simmons of Roane County challenged both of those claims.
In response to their claim that refusing to acknowledge their same sex marriage goes against the Equal Protection Clause, Simmons referred to the Baker v. Nelson case, which “holds that a state’s law on same-sex marriage do not violate the equal protection or substantive due process rights under the United States Constitution,” he wrote.
“Although the United States Supreme Court has had opportunities to overrule the Baker decision, it has refused to take that position even in the decision on which the plaintiff relies, United States v. Windsor,” he added.
Judge Simmons argued that the Tennessee laws do not discriminate against the couple’s marriage as “second class,” saying that there “are other marriages between opposite sex couples that are prohibited in Tennessee such as prohibited degrees of relationship (a parent marrying their child, a brother marrying a sister, etc.) Also a second marriage before the dissolution of a first marriage is prohibited.”
He also defended the right of the state to decide matters of marriage, stating,
“The battle is not between whether or not marriage is a fundamental right but what unions are included in the definition of marriage. The Legislative Branch of Tennessee and the voters of Tennessee have said that the definition of marriage should be as it always has been. That man’s best definition of marriage will always be the union of one (1) man and one (1) woman. The Court also finds that […] neither the Federal Government nor another state should be allowed to dictate to Tennessee what has traditionally been a state’s responsibility, which is to provide a framework of laws to govern the safety and wellbeing of its citizens.”
Although many lower courts have been ruling decisions regarding the issue of same-sex marriages and states’ bans on same-sex marriage, all agree that only the Supreme Court has the final say. According to Fox News, the U.S. Supreme Court has been requested to consider the recent Utah case, in which the state’s same-sex marriage ban was overturned. The report states that the Supreme Court’s decision may be released in October.
This article was updated on August 12, 5:34 P.M., to include information about the possibility of the Supreme Court's decision to be released in October.
