On the eve of the Supreme Court’s consideration of some major gay-marriage cases, Nevada District Court Judge Robert Jones has publicly released a decision (dated three days ago) in which he rejected a challenge to Nevada’s exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage. I haven’t closely read all of Sevcik v. Sandoval, but a quick skim suggests it’s a rhetorically charged decision. Claiming that “the homosexual-rights lobby” has “great political power,” and specifically citing what he called the national media’s support for President Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage, Jones ruled against the parties’ Equal Protection claims. In a press release, Lambda Legal was withering:
This entire decision rests on the ridiculous premise that a ‘meaningful percentage of heterosexual persons’ will decide not to get married if same-sex couples can. Not only is this not true, but it is settled law that the government is not allowed to cater to private biases — which is all that imagining that ‘some couples won’t join this club if those people are admitted’ amounts to. We are confident this ruling will be overturned on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Of course, by the time the Ninth Circuit gets to it, the Supreme Court may have spoken.