LGBT rights

The latest state-level ban on same-sex marriage has fallen after a Kentucky federal judge ruled yesterday that "'even sincere and long-held religious beliefs do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been out-voted,"' UPI reports. Judges now have overturned marriage bans in 20 states, UPI also reports.

The Tenth Circuit ruled today that Utah's ban on same-sex marriage violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, while a federal judge in Indiana rejected that state's ban on same-sex matrimony, USA Today reports. The 10th Circuit ruling is the first appellate ruling in the country, USA Today further reports.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett decided against appealing a federal judge's ruling striking down the ban on same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania. Corbett announced the decision just one day after U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III reached his decision. Gayapolis notes that the appeal period expired last week, so the reality of same-sex marriage has really, really arrived in the Keystone State.

While the federal government is planning a significant expansion of benefits for same-sex spouses, federal laws bar the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Social Security Administration from extending some benefits, the Wall Street Journal reports. Benefits will mostly only extend to spouses that live in states that recognize their marriages.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb struck down Wisconsin's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. “'Quite simply, this case is about liberty and equality, the two cornerstones of the rights protected by the United States Constitution,' U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb wrote in her Friday ruling," according to the Journal. Crabb also wrote that, "'If the state is going to deprive an entire class of citizens of a right as fundamental as marriage, then it must do more than say, ‘this is the way it has always been’ or ‘we’re not ready yet.'"
 

Kristen Hansen, with the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Journal, "'We just don't think that the majority should vote on the civil rights of the minority.'"

President Barack's Obama administration has ended a 33-year ban on Medicare coverage for gender reassignment surgery, The Washington Post reports. The decision will likely put pressure on private insurers to cover medical procedures for transgendered people, The Post also reports.

There are still barriers, however: "Patients covered under Medicare will not be guaranteed coverage for surgeries under Friday’s decision; they will have to justify their need just as they have to for any other medical treatments. The ruling does not apply to Medicaid, the health program administered by states for low-income individuals and families," according to the Post.

According to a Gallup poll, 63 percent of Americans said same-sex couples should have the right to adopt children. This is the highest level of support Gallup has ever found in 20 years of tracking the issue.

The Associated Press has a profile on the federal and state judges who have been striking down bans on same-sex marriage: "Collectively, these judges are diverse — white and black, male and female, gay and straight, some appointed by Democratic presidents and some by Republicans. However, they seemed to draw common inspiration from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June 2013 that ordered the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages ... But the judges' opinions — often embellished by soaring language — reflected a yearning to be on what they had come to see as the right side of history."

North Dakota is the last state to have its ban on same-sex marriage tested in court. A civil rights lawyer, who brought a challenge to South Dakota's ban, is in talks to file a court challenge to North Dakota's ban, the Washington Post reports.

FiveThirtyEight's Harry Enten reports that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has been proven right in predicting--when the court struck down the federal ban on recognizing same-sex marriage--that "'by formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition.'" Since the ruling in United States v. Windsor, same-sex marriage has comes to states because federal courts have ruled in favor of challengers to bans on same-sex matrimony, Enten concludes.