Two neighboring states. Two attorneys general. Two very different reactions to legal assaults on their man-woman-only marriage laws.
In Kentucky, Attorney General Jack Conway comes to tears as he discusses his decision not to appeal a federal judge’s decision that his state was constitutionally obligated to recognize gay marriages that had been performed in other states.
North of the Ohio River, Attorney General Greg Zoeller rushes to defend Indiana’s anti-gay-marriage law against all challenges.
Both men say they are acting out of conviction. But the tide of history, and a truth that goes deeper than the law books, are on Conway’s side, not Zoeller’s.
Since the Supreme Court last year struck down the federal marriage law, several federal and state judges have issued rulings against anti-gay-marriage laws. U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn’s February ruling in the Kentucky case was the first in a Southern state.
In his opinion, Heyburn, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush who once represented Sen. Mitch McConnell, acknowledged the importance of religious beliefs in American society. But he wrote, “assigning a religious or traditional rationale for a law, does not make it constitutional when that law discriminates against a class of people without other reasons.”