LGBT

unhappycamper

(60,364 posts) Mon Sep 8, 2014, 08:42 AM Sep 2014

Louisiana Judge's Gay Marriage Ruling Is Riddled with Errors

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-baume/louisiana-judges-gay-marr_b_5782550.html

Louisiana Judge's Gay Marriage Ruling Is Riddled with Errors
Matt Baume
Posted: 09/08/2014 5:29 am EDT

With the Justices of the Supreme Court returning from break at the end of the month, time is running out for states to prepare their marriage equality cases for consideration. Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia are all ready for the Justices to review, and Wisconsin and Indiana aren't far behind. But even though it's a long way from being ready for Supreme Court consideration, a strange case in Louisiana has been attracting a lot of attention.

On its face, the Louisiana marriage case seems straightforward enough: as in over 30 other states, the plaintiffs have sued for access to marriage on the grounds of due process and equal protection. What's unusual in the case is the bizarrely error-filled ruling delivered recently by Judge Martin Feldman.

Among the problems: Feldman refers to homosexuality as "lifestyle choices." He claims that gay and lesbian couples aren't entitled to the same protections as interracial couples because the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly mentions race. (It doesn't.) And he uses the wrong term to describe the standards of review by which discriminatory laws can be judged.

Feldman is the only federal judge to uphold a marriage ban since the Supreme Court overturned DOMA in 2013. In that time, more than 20 other courts have overturned the law. It's hard to imagine how Feldman's strange ruling can be allowed to stand, and plaintiffs have already announced their intention to appeal.

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Louisiana Judge's Gay Marriage Ruling Is Riddled with Errors (Original Post) unhappycamper Sep 2014 OP

Here's some more about this ignorant POS joeybee12 Sep 2014 #1

joeybee12

(56,177 posts)

1. Here's some more about this ignorant POS

Reply to unhappycamper (Original post)

Mon Sep 8, 2014, 06:11 PM

Sep 2014

On June 22, 2010, Judge Feldman issued a preliminary injunction blocking a six month moratorium on deep-water offshore drilling in Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs indicated that the Obama administration intended to immediately appeal the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.[5]

Feldman's 2008 financial disclosure report[6] indicates that in that year, he owned stock in Transocean (worth under $15,000), the company that owned the Deepwater Horizon rig, as well as in other oil companies which would be affected by the moratorium.[7] A federal judge is required to consider recusal when he owns shares in one of the parties in the case before him, however none of the companies listed in Feldman's 2008 disclosure were directly involved in the action against Salazar.

Judge Feldman's 2009 financial disclosure report[8] indicates that he had financial investments in multiple BlackRock funds, each valued under $15000, much like the prior year. Although Blackrock was said to be the largest holder of BP stock,[citation needed] it's not clear that any of these funds held stock in BP. Feldman held stock in Exxon-Mobil during the hearing on the drilling moratorium and from June 8 to June 21, he issued several orders related to the moratorium case. On June 22, at the "opening of the stock market", he reportedly sold his Exxon-Mobil stock. Hours later, he issued his ruling lifting the moratorium.[9]

As of the June 9, 2010 amended complaint, Transocean, Black Rock, BP and Exxon-Mobil were not plaintiffs in the action.[10]

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