The New Orleans Home Rule Charter can still not violate the Louisiana Constitution. While the judge did rule that affording health insurance to a wider variety of people than straight married couples and their families, that decision has nothing to do with the recognition of a married gay couple’s marriage when it comes to issues like making medical decisions for your spouse.

If a homosexual couple married in Massachusetts or California, and all they brought with them was the marriage license showing that marriage, the hospital (under the constitution of Louisiana) is forbidden from recognizing the union. One partner would legally be prohibited from making medical decisions for the other partner. The judges opinion on insurance benefits does not even come close to touching this issue.

Gay marriage is not legally recognized in Louisiana. A city commission cannot change that. In fact, the city charter states: “the City is permitted to pass any ordinance so long as it is not violative of the Louisiana Constitution”. A little research goes a long way…

My argument as a matter of law is based only on Louisiana law and not city ordinances. That much is plainly clear. And the lack of protection provided to gay people is codified into the state constitution. City ordinances cannot provide such protection in violation of the constitution of the state of Louisiana.

The only suggestion I made about New Orleans had nothing to do with city ordinances or city government. It had to do with how the electorate voted and those figures are clear, more than half the city voted to discriminate against gay people.

Your “correction” is not really a correction at all. It is an observation that the results may have differed. We can speculate all we want. However, at the end of the day New Orleans voters still voted to discriminate against gay people. Can you provide any evidence that if those people prevented from voting had been able to vote that those people would have voted differently than the rest of the parish? Can you provide evidence to show that enough people would have voted differently so that a majority of the parish would have then supported gay rights? Until you can do that, I stand by my argument that the majority of the voters in the city voted to discriminate against gay people.

http://www.laaclu.org/index.php?page=GLBT

A challenge to the domestic partnership registry was rejected by a New Orleans judge in January 2008. A little research goes a long way:

http://newyorklawschool.typepad.com/leonardlink/2008/01/new-orleans-cou.html

Meanwhile, a correction: The gay marriage vote was taken two days after the landfall of Hurricane Ivan, which appeared headed for New Orleans until virtually the last minutes. Most residents had been evacuated over the weekend, only returned on the Monday before the vote or afterward. Due to the confusion, 90 of the 442 precincts in New Orleans failed to receive voting machines until mid-afternoon of the referendum voting day. It was a botched election in Orleans Parish. A delay in the election would not have altered the outcome statewide, but the Orleans Parish returns cannot be taken to say much of anything about what were then the feelings of New Orleans voters.

And the city ordinances can say all they want. They cannot trump state law.

Meanwhile, you’ve never heard of the New Orleans Human Rights Commission and the city’s anti-discrimination ordinances?

https://secure.cityofno.com/Portals/Portal58/portal.aspx