Recently, the state of Idaho has joined 22 other states in the US to deem gay marriage lawful, Bloomberg said. US Magistrate Judge Candy W. Dale in Boise has thrown out the ban on same-sex unions, saying that broad authority to regulate matters of state concern does not give the state the power to violate constitutional rights of individuals.
She wrote in her ruling made yesterday, "Idaho's marriage laws deny its gay and lesbian citizens the fundamental right to marry and relegate their families to a stigmatized, second-class status without sufficient reason for doing so," she wrote in yesterday's ruling. These laws do not withstand any applicable level of constitutional scrutiny."
The ruling just followed four days after a judge in Arkansas has also declared the bar to same-sex marriages in the state invalid. The Idaho ruling would be the 12th consecutive victory for supports of gay marriages since September in US state and federal courts, Bloomberg said. The barrage of legal challenges to state bans on gay marriage was spurred from a US Supreme Court decision in June last year. The Supreme Court decision had strike down a measure that limited the federal recognition to traditional marriages, which is between a man and a woman. While appeals are being pursued, rulings that have struck down state bans on same-sex marriages across the US are reportedly been on hold.
Yesterday, a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia has heard arguments over whether to revive the state ban on gay marriage, which was struck down last year. Bloomberg said that the Virginia case was the third one to reach a federal appeals court since the landmark Supreme Court ruling in June.
Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter said about the strikedown in an emailed statement, "In 2006, the people of Idaho exercised their fundamental right, reaffirming that marriage is the union of a man and a woman."
