Louisiana Judge Strikes Down State's Marriage Ban

A state judge in Louisiana ruled Monday that the state's ban on recognizing or performing same-sex marriages violates the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses, less than three weeks after a federal judge in the state arrived at the opposite conclusion. 

Lafayette Parish Judge Edward Rubin's 23-page ruling ordered Louisiana state officials to recognize the California marriage of Angela Marie Constanza and Chasity Shanelle Brewer, and to grant Constanza's petition for an "intrafamily adoption" that would recognize Constanza as the second legal parent to the child Brewer gave birth to, according to BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner, who reviewed the ruling under embargo. The decision also orders state officials to allow the couple, who married in California in 2008, to file state tax returns as a married couple. 

Although the case before the court did not expressly seek to establish marriage equality statewide, Geidner notes that Rubin's expansive ruling nonetheless orders state officials to stop enforcing the unconstitutional law, effectively allowing same-sex couples to marry in Louisiana when the ruling takes effect. The U.S. Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause, Rubin argues, requires the state to recognize civil contracts legally entered into in other jurisdictions, including same-sex marriages. 

A spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Justice told BuzzFeed that the state has asked the court to place a stay on its order and intends to appeal the decision directly to the state Supreme Court. 

The decision, which has not yet been made publicly available since the case involves a minor, stands in stark contrast to a ruling from U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who this month became the first federal judge to uphold a statewide ban on same-sex marriage since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key section of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act in June 2013. Feldman's decision — which LGBT advocates have noted is rife with factual errors and flawed logic — is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. 

Rubin's ruling is the 40th state or federal court decision to find in favor of marriage equality since that landmark 2013 ruling in Windsor v. U.S., according to advocacy group Freedom to Marry. Aside from the federal ruling earlier this month in Louisiana, just one other court — a local judge in Tennessee — has upheld a state's ban on same-sex marriage.