Same-Sex Marriage and Abortion in the News

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In an oddly matched pair of state supreme court decisions, New York's highest court and Georgia's highest court upheld bans on same-sex marriage.

From NY:

The Court of Appeals in a 4-2 decision said New York's marriage law is constitutional and clearly limits marriage to between a man and a woman. Any change in the law should come from the state Legislature, Judge Robert Smith wrote.

"We do not predict what people will think generations from now, but we believe the present generation should have a chance to decide the issue through its elected representatives," Smith wrote.

From Georgia:

The Georgia Supreme Court, reversing a lower court judge's ruling, decided unanimously that the ban did not violate the state's single- subject rule for ballot measures. Superior Court Judge Constance Russell of Fulton County had ruled that it did.

As background, in 2004 the Massachusetts Supreme Court declared unconstititutional that state's law defining marraige as between a man and woman. Frankly, I am surprised by the NY decision. And in fact it would have been a 4-3 decision, but one justice recused himself because his daughter wrote a brief on behalf of homosexual activists in another action. In perhaps the most unintentionally revealing statement in a while, the plaintiffs' attorney declared, "We will take this battle to the legislature."

In other news, abortion reached an all-time high in Great Britian.

*Total abortions rose by 700 to 186,416 in 2005.

*31% of women had one or more previous abortions.

*In 22 per cent of cases, the unborn child was diagnosed with Down syndrome.

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