Thursday, April 3, 2014

Will SB 2681 become the basis for legalizing gay marriage in Mississippi?

While everyone has been focused on how SB 2681 will allow its proponents to discriminate against gays, another angle has been discussed by a few folks. 

The Unitarian Universalist Church has, since 1996, sanctioned same-sex marriages. There are UU churches in Ellisville (hello, Chris McDaniel!), Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Jackson, Oxford, and Tupelo. What happens when they perform a same-sex wedding ceremony after the enactment of SB 2681, and that couple attempts to have their marriage recognized by the state or a local government? 

And what happens when the ensuing court battle inevitably makes its way to the United States Supreme Court? That's the same court that recently struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, for what it's worth. 

Wouldn't it be interesting if all of the linguistic machinations employed by proponents of SB 2681 to make certain a court couldn't strike down SB 2681 as discriminatory wound up providing the very basis for legalizing gay marriage in Mississippi? And even more interesting if the state had to foot the bill for the gay couple challenging the law under SB 2681's "loser pays" provision?

Time will tell....

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Wait a minute. Does SB2681 have a "loser pays" provision? I never heard of such a thing? Is it in other parts of the Mississippi code? Or was it designed just for this POS? Is that even constitutional? That could potentially scare people away from challenging any law in court. I do not like this!

Jade said...

I like the way you think

Matt Eichelberger said...

Casey Ann, the bill did have it in there, but it was omitted from the conference report that became law.

Unknown said...

Matt, glad it was left out. Does this provision exist elsewhere in the code?

Unknown said...

Ooohhhh. If the state keeps me from practicing my sincerely held religious belief that I should be able to get married with the undue burden of a constitutional ban, we should ALL rush out this weekend, get married at a UU church and then flood the Jackson, Harrison, and whatever county court is appropriate with our marriage certificates 😊😊😊😊😊 Let's see what happens then

null said...

I never thought about it that way.... Very interesting.