IGF CultureWatch

Just a few scant years ago, who would have thought that marriage equality could be coming even to Mississippi? Not that the fight there is over. As The Clarion Ledger reports:

Same-sex marriages won’t be allowed in Mississippi while the state defends its gay-marriage ban, a federal appeals court said Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves on Nov. 25 overturned Mississippi’s definition of marriage as being only between a man and a woman, but he put his own decision on hold for two weeks to give the state time to appeal his ruling.

On Thursday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Mississippi cannot issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples during the appeals process. But the New Orleans-based court agreed to a quick process for considering the dispute over Mississippi’s definition of who can marry.

The paper also reports that:

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant said he voted for Mississippi’s constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and he “absolutely” still supports it.

“This is a constitutional issue with me,” Bryant told reporters Tuesday in Jackson. “You know, the people of the state of Mississippi vote to change a law, and then one federal judge can say, ‘Well, I’m going to overrule that.’ Then what good is the rule of law? What would be next? What if a judge said, ‘We think you ought to legalize marijuana.’ Then does that mean the laws of the state don’t exist anymore?

“So, this is a constitutional battle that I think you’re seeing waged all across the United States, is whether or not the people of a particular state, or the lawmakers that represent it, have the right to make certain laws,” Bryant said.

Recent months have seen a surprising number of conservative GOP governors and other officials acquiesce to the inevitable and accept, if not support, rulings favoring the freedom to marry (including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, among others). But the hard core of the social conservative base, exemplified in Congress by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and by governors such as Bryant and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, will man the guns of the last redoubt.

It matters not the Gov. Bryant’s argument is, well, specious, given that a key role of the judiciary is to overturn “democratically” passed laws that violate the fundamental protections of the federal Constitution. Ours is a republic of separate and distinct branches, some with the power to overrule others, and not a majoritarian dictatorship or mobocracy. Conservatives used to understand and defend that point, to the chagrin of progressives.

That the left often supports government overreach of dubious legality, and that these expansions of federal executive power do not involve the protection of fundamental liberties but far more often violate individual rights, confuses things. Fair enough, a pox on both partisan houses, as both left and right, conservatives and progressives, Democrats and Republicans are too often power-grubbing hypocrites, if not downright cesspools of corruption.

Nevertheless, recognition of the right to marry is coming, even in Mississippi, if not with a 5th Circuit ruling, then when the Supreme Court inevitably weighs in. And this expansion of liberty, despite the opposition of local majorities, is fundamentally and constitutionally sound.

Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich, appointed by Pope Francis, has a softer tone in his opposition to gay marriage, but he lacked a convincing argument this week on CBS’s “Face the Nation” (view clip here, after ad) as he tried to explain the Roman church’s opposition to gay marriage because it’s necessary “to protect mothers and fathers who come together to continue the human race.”

When asked by interviewer Norah O’Donnell about gay parents, he returned to the need for “legislation that supports, protects and upholds those who take the risk to bring children into the world”, but not for gay couples who are raising children, because they are “not bringing children into the world to preserve the human race,” or at least are not bringing children into the world “through their own love,” which is what deserves the state’s protection.

Church representatives had an easier time when they could just declare homosexual relations a sin and be done with it. Instead, the kind of convoluted argument Archbishop Cupich puts forward is going to be increasingly unconvincing as more gay couples become parents, even assuming that one were to accept the view that childbearing is the only legitimate rationale for state-recognized marriage.

On the international scene, there’s good news from down under: ruling Liberal party leaders will shortly decide whether to allow their members a conscience vote on a recently introduced marriage equality bill. As Reason reports:

“Want to hear a senator introduce legislation legalizing government recognition of same-sex marriage in a speech that also invokes the names of Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwing von Mises? You’ll have to go to Australia for that, mate.”

Liberal Party Prime Minister Tony Abott remains opposed to allowing gay people the freedom to marry (but will likely acquiesce to allowing a parliamentary vote). Also opposed to marriage equality was former Labour PM Julia Gillard, although she now says that gay marriage seems inevitable.

And more good international news. Finland is set to become “the last Scandinavian country in which gays and lesbians can legally tie the knot if the measure receives final approval,” the Washington Blade reports. And right on Putin’s doorstep, that’s sure to unleash fresh rage from Russia’s gay-hating despot, whose tyranny has driven many Russian gays to seek asylum in the U.S.

More. Putin surrounded by deviant nations! Poland gets its first openly gay mayor in elections with record number of LGBT candidates.