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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2014
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
POLICY
Judge hears challenge of Texas' gay marriage ban
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mark Phariss, left, holds the hand of partner Victor Holmes, center, as they leave the U.S. Federal Courthouse on Wednesday in San Antonio. District Judge Orlando Garcia said Wednesday he would issue a decision later after the two Texas men filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking permission to marry, and a lesbian couple sued to have their marriage recognized.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN ANTONIO — Alawyer representing Texas asked a federal judge Wednesday to reject pleas from two gay couples to suspend the state constitution's definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, calling the legalization of same-sex marriages "a more recent innovation than Facebook."
Mike Murphy, an assistant Texas solicitor general, told District Judge Orlando Garcia if he lifted the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage he would be injecting himself into a social and political debate that should be left to lawmakers.
Garcia scheduled Wednesday's hearing, which he noted was on President Abraham Lincoln's birthday, to consider a motion by two couples for a preliminary injunction immediately lifting the Texas gay marriage ban pending a trial later this year. Garcia did not immediately rule or give an indication when he might release a written decision but predicted this case, or one of 22 similar ones in other states, "will make its way to the Supreme Court."
"These questions are political questions, not constitutional rights," he told the court. "Same-sex marriage is not included in the fundamental right of marriage ... it is a more recent innovation than Facebook."
The case before Garcia is the first of its kind in Texas, and in the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Mark Phariss and Victor Holmes filed a federal civil rights lawsuit complaining that Texas' ban unconstitutionally denies
them the fundamental right to marry because of their sexual orientation. The other lawsuit was filed by Cleopatra De Leon and Nicole Dimetman, who argue that Texas officials are violating their rights and those of their 2-yearold child by not recognizing their marriage license from Massachusetts.
Holmes and De Leon are both U.S. Air Force veterans
"If marriage is good for children, then it is irrational to prohibit homosexual couples who could have children from being married."
NEEL LANE
Attorney
who served in San Antonio, though both couples have since moved away.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican running for governor, opposes legalizing gay marriage and has vowed to defend the law. But civil rights groups recently won injunctions against similar bans in Utah and Oklahoma relying on the same argument being cited in the Texas case — that banning gay marriage violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
He also rejected Murphy's argument that lawmakers did not exclude homosexuals
Neel Lane, an attorney for the two couples, dismissed the state's argument that their rights were not violated because they are free to marry members of the opposite sex. He said that's like holding someone's head underwater and saying the person is free to breathe, just not air.
by passing the ban but were trying to promote responsible procreation.
"If marriage is good for children, then it is irrational to prohibit homosexual couples who could have children from being married," he said, pointing out that gays may adopt children in Texas.
While Garcia listened to arguments, another federal judge decided Wednesday that Kentucky must recognize
gay marriages performed in other states. In a 23-page ruling, U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II concluded that the government may define marriage and attach benefits to it, but cannot "impose a traditional or faith-based limitation" without a sufficient justification for it.
In his comments from the bench, Garcia mentioned key civil rights laws passed after the end of the Civil War
and pointed out that racial segregation and bans on interracial marriage were part of American tradition until federal judges declared them unconstitutional.
Attorneys general in other states have taken mixed approaches to court challenges to bans on gay marriage. Utah and Oklahoma are fighting rulings lifting their bans. In Nevada and Virginia, attorneys general have chosen
not to defend them.
The couples denied that they are trying to redefine marriage or carve out a new constitutional right.
"Marriage is something when two people who are committed to each other, who love each other and who want to demonstrate that commitment," Holmes said. "I think that is what the tradition is about and that tradition should apply to us."
nim on July 23, 2009, and told him she was giving Haynes a ride to a store. Later that night, Corey called him to say her water had broken and a friend was taking her to the hospital to give birth, Dion said.
Corey, Dion and Haynes' baby were found two days later at a homeless shelter in Plymouth, N.H. Her lawyers acknowledged that she was found with the baby but said she played no role in Haynes' slaying.
Dion testified that Corey, whom he believed was pregnant at the time, called
A couple of hours later, Corey called him again and said, "We had a baby, Dion testified. Dion said Corey arrived home the next morning with a baby girl he believed was his daughter. He said he and Corey introduced the baby to family and friends over the next couple of days.
The girl, now 4, lives with her biological father.
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Haynes' body was found in a closet in her apartment on July 27, 2009. She had been beaten in the head and strangled with an electrical cord. Her abdomen had been cut open, and her baby was gone.
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CRIME
Woman found guilty in cut-from-womb killing
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WORCESTER, Mass. — A woman accused of killing her pregnant friend three months after her own miscarriage was convicted Wednesday of beating and strangling her, then cutting the baby from her womb and passing the child off as her daughter.
Julie Corey sobbed as a Worcester Superior Court jury found her guilty of the 2009 murder of 23-year-old Darlene Haynes. Sentencing was scheduled for Tuesday.
Prosecutors said Haynes was eight months pregnant when Corey attacked her and cut
the baby out of her body. They told the jury that Corey had been pregnant, too, but had a miscarriage three months earlier and told her boyfriend and family that Haynes' baby was her own.
Corey's lawyers contended that police failed to follow up on leads that could have implicated other potential suspects in the killing, including Haynes' ex-boyfriend. They also suggested that Haynes' ex-boyfriend had given Corey and her boyfriend, Alex Dion, the baby. Dion denied that on the witness stand.
Corey, 39, did not testify
during the trial.
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