Marriage equality made some strides on Thursday. Not only did a constitutional court in Colombia strike down a proposed law attempting to define marriage as a union strictly between men and women, a federal appeals court in Puerto Rico also ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban gay marriage in any case, according to BuzzFeed.
In June 2015, the United States Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide after a 5-4 ruling against marriage bans in Obergefell v. Hodges. Considering the ruling extended to all of the United States, the 1st Circuit of Appeals Court asked U.S. District Court Judge Juan Pérez-Giménez to reconsider his October 2014 ruling in favor of a gay marriage ban. However, Pérez-Giménez upheld the ban in March. In his opinion, the gay marriage ruling didn’t apply to Puerto Rico because of its “unincorporated territory” status, Slate reports.
The federal appeals court took Pérez-Giménez off the case and eviscerated him. “The district court’s ruling errs in so many respects that it is hard to know where to begin,” the opinion said. “The constitutional rights at issue here are the rights to due process and equal protection, as protected by both the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution…In ruling that the ban is not unconstitutional because the applicable constitutional right does not apply in Puerto Rico, the district court both misconstrued that right and directly contradicted our mandate.”
And just like that, #lovewins once again.