Kentucky is the latest state where a judge has struck down a ban on Gay Marriage. It's on appeal but so far, I don't think any of those appeals have succeeded.
One thing I find fascinating about all this is how weak the arguments against legalizing Gay Marriage have been. If you're angry that Proposition 8 was overturned in California, go find and read the transcripts of the oral arguments. You'll wind up thinking the guy arguing for Prop 8 had been bribed to throw the case.
The one in Kentucky is really feeble. Essentially, the attorney arguing to keep the ban argued that traditional marriage contributed to a stable birth rate and, therefore, the state's long-term economic stability. In other words, if we let gay people marry, straight people will begin having an unpredictable number of children. In knocking this down, U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II wrote…
Even assuming the state has a legitimate interest in promoting procreation, the Court fails to see, and Defendant never explains, how the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage has any effect whatsoever on procreation among heterosexual spouses. Excluding same-sex couples from marriage does not change the number of heterosexual couples who choose to get married, the number who choose to have children, or the number of children they have.
Years ago, a gay friend of mine said that one of the problems he and other gay folks faced was the vast number of straight people who just plain didn't understand Gay. He said, "They think they can pass laws to make us all straight." I thought that was silly when he said it but this is not the first time I've thought, "Hey, maybe Jonathan was right."
If you want to read Judge Heyburn's decision, it's here but the gist of it is when he writes of the Defendants' positions, "These arguments are not those of serious people." He actually wrote that.
The case against Gay Marriage was not made by the state's Attorney General, by the way. He refused to go in and defend the law so the Governor hired an outside law firm to argue that position. That was sure money well-spent.