WorldNetDaily: Judge upholds traditional marriage

This is the first federal case in which the Defense of Marriage Act was at issue. A female roommate pair--don't ever ask me to call them a "couple"--traveled to Massachusetts (where else?), obtained a "marriage" certificate, then returned to Florida to wave it around--in federal court. Frankly, I welcomed this litigation, because it would tell us where our national judiciary stood.

Judge James Moody, Jr., has ruled in a way that will make the same-sex "marriage" case far more difficult to prove. He managed to highlight every issue of concern, saying that:

1. No State need give any faith or credit to a public act, record, or proceeding of a type that that State does not recognize. So if a State does not recognize same-sex roommates as "married", it need show no deference to any roommate pair who comes in waving a "marriage" certificate issued in another State if such not be their wish. (In fact, the judge said that if FF&C applied that universally, then one State could set national policy, a thing the judge presumably believes was never the intent of the Framers.)
2. The denial of recognition of such out-of-State instruments is not a denial of equal protection of the laws. In ruling this way, Judge Moody cited a total lack of any federal case law recognizing marriage between persons of the same sex. I would have been happier to see the judge rely strictly on the Constitution--because the trouble with case law is that there always is the first case to set any precedent.
3. The case of Lawrence v. Texas is irrelevant to the issue at hand, because the Supreme Court held in Lawrence that they intended no such construction of their decision in that case.
4. Last of all, the judge found that the plaintiffs simply had not shown that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. In so ruling, the judge said that a given statute is presumed constitutional until shown otherwise. That has the status of a rule of the court, rather than a Constitutional principle--but it's a rule in keeping with every other principle of the requirement of adequate showing in a free society with separated powers of government.

Now I don't expect this to be the end of the matter. For one thing, the two roommates will probably go to the Eleventh Circuit for an overturn, and if they don't get it, they'll go to the Supremes.

Now the Supremes could, if they desired, simply "deny cert" and "let the ruling stand without comment"--except for another consideration. The minute some other roommate pair in another federal district finds a judge more sympathetic to their claims, we now set the stage for a split between jurisdictions--and perhaps even a split between circuits (say, if the roommate pair files their lawsuit in Oregon rather than Florida, because Oregon, though it amended its Constitution to rule out same-sex "marriage", lies within the Ninth Circuit, whose reputation for far-left rulings is well-known). That would force the Supreme Court to act, if nothing else would--because the Court hates to see the circuits split on a question as weighty as this. (The Supreme Court cannot set a binding precedent simply by refusing to review a case sent to it. It must take the case, and rule on it.)

What is the next act in this drama? Only time will tell.