A judge upheld Puerto Rico’s ban on gay marriage on Monday, becoming the first Democratic-appointed federal jurist to rule against same-sex couples’ right to wed since the Supreme Court axed the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013.
Carter-appointed Judge Juan Manuel Pérez-Giménez ruled that the Windsor v. U.S. opinion did not pave the way for same-sex marriage, contradicting all but one other federal trial judge who has reviewed the issue since the landmark ruling.
“The Windsor opinion did not create a fundamental right to same-gender marriage nor did it establish that state opposite-gender marriage regulations are amenable to federal constitutional challenges,” Pérez-Giménez wrote. “If anything, Windsor stands for the opposite proposition: it reaffirms the States’ authority over marriage, buttressing Baker’s conclusion that marriage is simply not a federal question.”
More than a dozen federal judges on the district and appellate level have struck down gay marriage bans as unconstitutional, citing Windsor to argue that they amount to impermissible discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Pérez-Giménez took a swipe at those judges.
“It takes inexplicable contortions of the mind or perhaps even willful ignorance – this Court does not venture an answer here – to interpret Windsor’s endorsement of the state control of marriage as eliminating the state control of marriage,” he wrote.