LA. HIGH COURT HEARS MARRIAGE AMENDMENT CASE: From the New Orleans Times-Picayune

In its final public hearing of the year, the Louisiana Supreme Court today will likely play to a packed house as it considers whether to uphold the Sept. 18 decision of voters to add a ban on same-sex marriage to the state Constitution.

The justices will take up the state's claim that a Baton Rouge judge was wrong in October when he voided the election result on grounds that the constitutional amendment illegally had more than one purpose. State District Judge William Morvant of the 19th Judicial District ruled in response to a lawsuit filed by the Forum for Equality and other gay rights advocates who tried unsuccessfully to get the election called off.

They contended the amendment goes beyond what supporters claim is its single goal: reserving marriage and the benefits and obligations that flow from it for opposite-sex couples. ...

In asking the justices to overrule Morvant, the state's attorneys maintain that, although the amendment has multiple parts, all are aimed at protecting "legitimate, traditional marriage against the modern predators of same-sex marriage, 'faux marriage' and their equivalent alternatives."

"It would have been fruitless indeed to ban same-sex marriage without also banning these substantially equivalent alternatives, which are merely substitutes for illegitimate marriage by another name," the state's lawyers said in briefs to the court.

But the "substantially similar" language greatly troubles the plaintiffs. They say it could impair private contracts between gay and other unmarried partners that cover joint property ownership, wills and authorization of medical decisions if one partner is incapacitated.

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posted by Eve at 8:09 PM VOTE

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