Leading GOP Judge Rips Gay-Marriage Bans

Conservative lawyers defending gay-marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin faced some heat from the judiciary branch on Tuesday. During oral arguments, Richard Posner, a Reagan nominee in 1981, laid waste to Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Timothy Samuelson’s argument that “tradition” was at the heart of the ban. “It was tradition to not allow blacks and whites to marry—a tradition that got swept away,” the judge declared. The ban, he said, comes from “a tradition of hate… and savage discrimination” of gays. The lawyers were also mocked by another judge on the panel for their argument that “all this is a reflection of biology. Men and women make babies, same-sex couples do not.”