Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, a
Democrat, argues in a brief filed Thursday that the state's ban on
gay marriage promotes Kentucky's “legitimate societal and economic
interests in natural procreation.”
A federal lawsuit challenging the
state's ban is currently before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in
Cincinnati, which will hear arguments on Wednesday along with cases
from 3 other states.
(Related: Opponents
call for 4 days of prayer to ask 6th
Circuit to uphold marriage bans in 4 states.)
In a 12-page brief filed in Love v.
Beshear, the governor cites a recent dissent in a case
challenging Virginia's ban to argue that its ban “does not violate
the Equal Protection Clause” of the 14th Amendment.
On Monday, the Fourth Circuit Court of
Appeals in Richmond upheld a lower court's decision invalidating
Virginia's ban.
In his dissent, Circuit Judge Paul V.
Niemeyer chided the majority for failing “to explain how this new
notion became incorporated into the traditional definition of
marriage except by linguistic manipulation.”
(Related: Appeals
court strikes down Virginia's gay marriage ban.)
“Although indirect, such [marriage]
benefits are clearly subsidies that come at a cost to the
Commonwealth. … Under Johnson, the Commonwealth is not
obligated to similarly subsidize same-sex marriage, since doing so
would not possibly further its interest,” Beshear's hired counsel
quoted from Niemeyer's dissent.
“Therefore, just as providing
veterans' educational benefits to conscientious objectors would not
have furthered Congress's legitimate interest in encouraging
voluntary enlistment, so would providing marriage benefits to
same-sex couples not promote Kentucky's legitimate societal and
economic interests in natural procreation. Thus, excluding same-sex
couples from the state marriage benefit does not violate the Equal
Protection Clause,” the
brief states.
Beshear is defending the state's ban in
two cases before the Sixth Circuit.
(Related: Opposition
to gay marriage in Kentucky drops 22 points over 10 years.)
(Brief provided by Equality
Case Files.)