It didn’t take a federal district judge long to strike down Alaska’s same-sex marriage ban:
[Judge Timothy] Burgess heard arguments Friday afternoon and promised a quick decision. He released his 25-page decision Sunday afternoon.
“Refusing the rights and responsibilities afforded by legal marriage sends the public a government-sponsored message that same-sex couples and their familial relationships do not warrant the status, benefits and dignity given to couples of the opposite sex,” Burgess wrote.
“This Court finds that Alaska’s same-sex marriage laws violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment because no state interest provides `excessively persuasive justification’ for the significant infringement of rights that they inflicted upon homosexual individuals,” he wrote.
The state’s Republican governor plans to appeal, an appeal that will go to the Ninth Circuit, the same court that recently struck down marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada. It looks like couples won’t have to wait for that appeal to fail, either, with the state Bureau of Vital Statistics planning to accept marriage license applications first thing Monday morning:
“The license application begins the three-day waiting period before the license can be issued. All marriages in Alaska must have the marriage license issued before the ceremony is performed,” wrote Phillip Mitchell, head of the Bureau of Vital Statistics. “We expect our office will be busy tomorrow but we will make every effort to help customers as quickly as possible.”
If you needed another indicator of how far we’ve come, Burgess was appointed by George W. Bush in 2005, shortly after Bush used anti-marriage equality initiatives to help Republicans win swing states in 2004. And if you wanted a laugh, just think about the reaction in the Palin household.
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