Dramatic change in the tone of judges' comments and questions in hearing gay marriage cases

Within the past few years, the falling of bans on same-sex marriage has begun to resemble a row of dominoes toppling.    There is also a dramatic change in the tone of the judges' comments and questions in hearings -- most notable recently in the 7th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.   The court was considering appeals to uphold bans in Indiana and Wisconsin.

As reported earlier this week by the Associated Press, 

"While judges often play devil's advocate during oral arguments, the panel's often-blistering questions for the defenders of the same-sex marriage bans could be a signal the laws may be in trouble — at least at this step in the legal process. . . .

". . . Richard Posner, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, hit the backers of the ban the hardest. He balked when Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Timothy Samuelson repeatedly pointed to "tradition" as the underlying justification for barring gay marriage."

Judge Posner said that it was once tradition not to allow blacks and whites to marry and that the prohibition of same-sex marriage derives from "a tradition of hate . . . and savage discrmination."

He then talked about the effect on children of same-sex couples, who have to struggle to grasp why their schoolmates' parents were married and theirs weren't.

"What horrible stuff. . . .  What benefits to society in barring gay marriage outweighs that kind of harm to children?"

Another plaintiff attorney tried the argument that "men and women make babies;  same-sex couples do not. . . .  We have to have a mechanism to regulate that, and marraige is that mechanism."

To which, Judge David Hamilton quipped, "I assume you know how that has been working out in practice?"   And he cited figures that, from 1990 to 2009, births to single women rose 53% in Wisconsin and 68% in Indiana.

The chances seem good that this court will uphold lower court decisions that overturned the bans -- and then we'll have two more state cases in the pool of choices for POTUS to pick one or more to hear in the coming term.

Ralph