Judicial Performance of Same-Sex Marriages: Personal Beliefs Must Take a Back-Seat to Impartiality
Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court held that an individual’s right to marry a person of his or her choice to be a fundamental right under the United States Constitution. This ruling, highly publicized and long-anticipated, sparked expansive debate regarding Same-Sex Marriages across the country as citizens struggled to adapt their personal and professional lives in accordance with the Court’s intent to equally expand the rights of marriage to same-sex couples. Not long after, small businesses engaged in the “wedding industry” – perhaps, most notably a bakery in Colorado – announced that due to personal beliefs, they would not extend their services to same-sex couples that wished to marry. Debate and litigation continues to develop as courts begin to unearth whether the personal beliefs of business owners to essentially engage in discrimination violate the Supreme Court’s holding.
While the media likely anticipated backlash from United States citizens historically entitled to their personal beliefs and motives concerning same-sex marriages, it might not have anticipated the extension of similar concerns all the way to the judicial branch. On August 7, 2015, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued an … Read More... “Same-Sex Marriages: Should Judges Decline To Perform Same-Sex Marriages?”