BlogWood: MT Archives

Gay couples give up

SP Times:

Three gay couples dropped their lawsuits Tuesday challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act, saying they don't want to risk having the U.S. Supreme Court set a legal precedent by rejecting their cases.

The suits were brought by gay couples married in Massachusetts and Canada who wanted Florida to recognize their marriages. Florida law only recognizes marriages between a man and a woman, and the Defense of Marriage Act allows states to disregard gay marriages performed elsewhere.

Ellis Rubin, the couples' attorney, said a key factor in their decision was the Supreme Court's recent refusal to hear a challenge to the Florida law that bans gays from adopting children.

"That ruling strongly suggests that our case would not be favorably received," Rubin said.

Two of the lawsuits were dismissed by a federal judge in Tampa last week. The third case, filed in Miami, had not been heard.

If the dismissals had been appealed, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta would have heard the case, and its ruling either way would almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court.

Rubin said he felt chances were "very slim of us prevailing" in an 11th Circuit appeal, "and that would establish precedent for other judicial circuits."

Defending marriage

Baptists have the highest divorce rate of any Christian denomination, and are more likely to get a divorce than atheists and agnostics, according to a national survey. ......

Alabama, with a population of 4.3 million, has more than one million
Southern Baptists and a majority of evangelical Protestants. The state
ranks fourth nationally in divorce rates, behind Nevada, Tennessee and
Arkansas, according to U.S. government statistics.

Barna Research Group interviewed 3,854 adults from the 48 continental
states, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent. The survey
found that while just 11 percent of the adult population is currently
divorced, 25 percent of all adults have experienced at least one divorce,
the survey showed.

Twenty seven percent of those describing themselves as born-again
Christians are currently or have previously been divorced, compared to 24
percent among other adults.

"While it may be alarming to discover that born-again Christians are more
likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in
place for quite some time," said George Barna, president of Barna
Research Group.