Q Toon: What's Good for the Michigoose

Q Syndicate✒Nov 20, 2014

Just before I left for vacation, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals went against a wave of appellate court rulings by deciding that it is constitutional for Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee to deny marriage rights to same-sex couples. The two Republican appointees found in DeBoer v. Snyder that

By creating a status (marriage) and by subsidizing it (e.g., with tax-filing privileges and deductions), the States created an incentive for two people who procreate together to stay together for purposes of rearing offspring. That does not convict the States of irrationality, only of awareness of the biological reality that couples of the same sex do
not have children in the same way as couples of opposite sexes and that couples of the same sex do not run the risk of unintended offspring. 

This, after earlier noting that in the case of the Michigan couple named as plaintiffs, April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse,

Marriage was not their first objective. DeBoer and Rowse each had adopted children as single parents, and both wanted to serve as adoptive parents for the other partner’s children. Their initial complaint alleged that Michigan’s adoption laws violated
the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The State moved to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of standing, and the district court tentatively agreed. Rather than dismissing the action, the court “invit[ed the] plaintiffs to seek leave to amend their complaint to . . . challenge” Michigan’s laws denying them a marriage license.

So I guess marriage discrimination is intended to promote tax breaks for opposite-sex couples having "unintended offspring." Which puts Republican opposition to "Planned Parenthood" in a whole new light.