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Federal Judge Upholds Louisiana's Same-Sex-Marriage Ban

Lester Berryman, a same-sex-marriage advocate, speaks at a rally in New Orleans in June 2013.
Gerald Herbert AP
Lester Berryman, a same-sex-marriage advocate, speaks at a rally in New Orleans in June 2013.

A federal judge in New Orleans has upheld Louisiana's law banning same-sex marriage. The decision is the first break in a string of more than two dozen federal court rulings that have struck down same-sex-marriage bans in other states over the past year.

In upholding Louisiana's ban, Judge Martin Feldman noted that same-sex marriage was "inconceivable until very recently," and, though legal in 19 states, he said it is "not yet so entrenched" as to be a fundamental right recognized by the Constitution. Louisiana, he said, has a "legitimate interest ... in linking children to an intact family formed by their two biological parents."

If states must permit same-sex marriage, the judge asked, would they also have to permit marriage between two members of the same family, or marriage between more than two people?

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Feldman's decision is the first federal court decision upholding a gay-marriage ban since the Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a federal law that had banned federal recognition of same-sex marriages in states where such unions are legal. Since that decision, there have been 27 rulings in federal courts striking down same-sex-marriage bans. Three of those decisions are on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Feldman, appointed by President Reagan, has been involved in other high-profile cases. In 2010, he overturned the Obama administration's temporary ban on deep-sea drilling after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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