Challenge to Kentucky marriage amendment rejected

Last November, eleven states, including Kentucky, added constitutional amendments recognizing marriage as it has traditionally been defined, as the union of one man and one woman, and declining to adopt any alternative versions of marriage. Kentucky's amendment was quickly challenged in court as having been improperly enacted pursuant to Kentucky law governing the adoption of amendments. The Alliance Defense Fund, representing the Kentucky Family Foundation as well as the legislator who proposed the amendment, intervened to assist in defending the constitutionality of the amendment. In my former life as a private practitioner I had some very minor involvement in assisting ADF during the litigation.

The circuit court has now dismissed the challenge. It concluded that the amendment satisfied all legal requirements for enacting a constitutional amendment. The court made the point of emphasizing that no substantive due process or equal protection challenges had been made by the plaintiffs, and expressly declined to go beyond the arguments raised in the pleadings to address any federal constitutional issues. At one point, the court seemed almost offended by the argument that the amendment had been brought to prevent an activist court from reading Kentucky law as requiring recognition of marriage relationships beyond one man and one woman. ADF has a copy of the opinion here (pdf format).

Of course the decision will likely be appealed, and the circuit court's decision will probably not be the last word in this matter. But it's a good start.