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Email: "Judge Declares Nebraska Consitutional Amendment on Marriage Violates U.S. Constitution"

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BY LifeSiteNews.com LINCOLN, May 16, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a decision certain to be appealed, a federal judge in Nebraska Thursday ruled that the state’s popular constitutional amendment on marriage violates the U.S. Constitution. The court declared the amendment “amounts to punishment” and that “the institution of marriage is difficult to define and/or describe.”“By filing this lawsuit, the ACLU and their allies who didn’t like the marriage amendment were telling Nebraskans, ‘We don’t care what you said. You have to let us fight this political battle until we win,’” said Glen Lavy, senior vice president of the Alliance Defense Fund’s Marriage Litigation Center.“The judge today unaccountably accepted the bogus theory of these groups that they are entitled to fight their political battle in the courtroom until they get what they want.”Nebraska’s amendment, which 70 percent of Nebraska voters adopted in 2000, states, “Only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in Nebraska. The uniting of two persons of the same sex in a civil union, domestic partnership, or other similar same-sex relationship shall not be valid or recognized in Nebraska.”The focus of the lawsuit was upon the second sentence of the amendment. In their lawsuit, Citizens for Equal Protection, et al., v. Attorney General Jon Bruning, et al., filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska, opponents of the amendment claimed that “it erects a discriminatory barrier for advocacy” when same-sex couples seek change through the standard political process. “Despite the ACLU’s cries to the contrary and regardless of today’s ruling, Nebraska’s amendment is clearly constitutional,” Lavy said.“They and their allies who filed this lawsuit began pushing their political agenda before anyone in Nebraska ever thought of amending the state constitution. They have no right to use the federal courts to overturn a political defeat.”On Jan. 19, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld that state’s similar amendment on marriage, finding that it was not constitutionally flawed. The full opinion issued by the court today can be read at: www.telladf.org/UserDocs/Citizens.pdf http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/judge-declares-nebraska-consitutional-amendment-on-marriage-violates-us-con/

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