As has become a running theme in court decisions overturning state bans on same-sex marriage, conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia got some love when U.S. district Judge Barbara Crabb struck down Wisconsin’s ban Friday.
Scalia’s name is invoked 12 times in Crabb’s 88-page decision, including numerous references to his now infamous dissent in the Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act last year. His dissent from the Lawrence v. Texas case, which overturned state bans on sodomy, is also cited on multiple occasions.
“However, as noted by Justice Scalia in his dissent, it is difficult to cabin the Court’s reasoning to DOMA only,” Crabb wrote as she concluded that the DOMA decision — if logically extended — requires the judiciary to strike down state bans on same-sex marriage as well.
It is the same point that Scalia made in his dissent, a point that judges in other states — Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and Utah — have now referenced in their own decisions overturning or undercutting gay marriage bans.
