Tennessee’s Gay Marriage Recognition Ruling Narrow But Important

Another federal judge has
gotten involved in a state’s same-sex marriage recognition ban.
This time, in Tennessee, U.S. District Court Judge Aleta A. Trauger
very narrowly ruled Friday that the state
cannot apply its ban to three gay couples who were legally
married in other states.

Similar to a recent decision in
Kentucky, the ruling
(PDF) does not require Tennessee to hand out licenses to gay
couples and start marrying them off. Rather, the judge is requiring
the state to recognize three gay marriages legally performed
elsewhere.

Or, rather, the judge has granted a preliminary injunction
forbidding Tennessee from applying its ban on recognition to the
three couples named in a lawsuit against the state. Court rulings,
huh? The judge ruled that the lawsuit is likely to win its
challenge to the state’s law moving forward, and so she is
implementing the injunction to prevent any harms that may occur to
the couples in the lawsuit due to Tennessee’s ban. A woman in one
of the couples is pregnant. If something happens to her, would the
state be able to acknowledge her partner as the child’s other
mother? That’s one of the reasons Trauger gives for her
injunction.

Trauger invoked last year’s United States v. Windsor
Supreme Court ruling, where the majority determined that the
federal government cannot refuse to recognize same-sex marriages
from states where it’s legal. The judge wrote it’s likely the same
rule would apply to Tennessee as well. In her summary, Trauger
concluded: “At some point in the future, likely with the benefit of
additional precedent from circuit courts and, perhaps, the Supreme
Court, the court will be asked to make a final ruling on the
plaintiffs’ claims. At this point, all signs indicate that, in the
eyes of the United States Constitution, the plaintiffs’ marriages
will be placed on an equal footing with those of heterosexual
couples and that proscriptions against same-sex marriage will soon
become a footnote in the annals of American history.”

I’m not entirely sure another Supreme Court ruling may be
necessary on gay marriage with the way things are moving, though I
still expect one to come within five years. I’m not sure the
Supreme Court actually has to rule that same-sex marriage must be
legally recognized in all 50 states. All it has to do is rule that
United States v. Windsor applies to the states as well.
That means states have to recognize other states’ legal marriages.
At that point, it would be silly for any state to continue to
refuse to hand out its own wedding licenses to gay couples. If it
were legally required to recognize and offer the same benefits to
gay couples who were wed in other states, it would be kind of
pointless not to just allow it themselves. Of course, it wouldn’t
be out of the realm of possibility for any state, out of pettiness,
to cling to such a rule and require its residents to trek to other
states to get legally wed.