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February 26, 2014 · 5:44 am

Gay Marriage, Adoption, Science, and the Law

Things are happening fast on the struggle for Marriage Equality in the United States. Michigan is currently in the nation spotlight, as its own marriage laws are being challenged by two lesbian Michigan citizens in Federal Court. Concurrently, many reflections of the Civil Rights Movement can be found in the Marriage Equality Movement. Each finds its Constitutional grounding in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Each is caught in a struggle between the Federal Government and States Rights.

For this assignment – for three days – I want to you read, write, inform yourself on the legal arguments surrounding the Marriage Equality Movement in the United States. Particularly, I’d like you to look at the current court case playing out in Detroit as well as Arizona’s SB 1062, which allows private businesses to refuse service to homosexuals, based on personal religious views.

I have created a Blendspace below that deals with these issues, and adoption and science in regard to homosexuality.

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February 23, 2014 · 8:46 am

Michigan’s – Defense of Marriage Amendment (2004) in Federal Court

Go here for more information on DeBoer v Snyder. Go here for coverage at the national level.

This week (DeBoer v Snyder), a lawsuit will commence in Federal Court brought by April DeBoer and her longtime partner Jayne Rowse residents of Michigan challenging the state’s DOMA law. The two women, both nurses in Oakland County, seek to adopt the three special-needs children they have been raising together since 2010. Each has already exercised her right to adopt as a single parent. But under a Michigan law that forbids unmarried couples from jointly adopting, neither is legally recognized as the legal parent of her partner’s children. The case challenges the constitutionality of Michigan’s law passed in 2004 which defines marriage as only between and a woman.

The state of Michigan is defending the law based on its 10th Amendment rights of the state to determine its own sovereignty on the issue. The 2004 Constitutional Amendment was passed by a majority of Michigan citizens. April and Jayne claim that their 14th Amendment rights of equal protection are being violated.

By the time a new law permitting gay marriage in Illinois takes effect June 1, same-sex couples will be free to marry in at least 17 states (contact the Yampolsky & Margolis Criminal Defense in Las Vegas for legal help). Four more states either recognize civil unions between gay couples or honor same-sex marriages consecrated elsewhere.

In Michigan and 32 other states where state laws or constitutional amendments bar same-sex partners from marrying, elected officials defending the status quo are under siege. Freedom to Marry, a nationwide advocacy group, counts more than 40 pending lawsuits in which LGBT plaintiffs seek to invalidate restrictions on same-sex marriage.

Stay tuned….