US: In a double blow to gay marriage campaigners, a New York court has ruled that banning same-sex marriage does not violate the state's constitution and Georgia's supreme court has reinstated a constitutional ban on gay marriage.
The New York ruling was a bitter disappointment to gay rights campaigners, who had hoped the state would follow the lead of Massachusetts, which struck down marriage discrimination laws in 2003.
By a majority of 4-2, the Court of Appeals found on Thursday that the state's definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman could have a rational basis, and that it was up to New York's state legislature, not the courts, to decide if it should be changed.
"Plaintiffs have not persuaded us that this long-accepted restriction is a wholly irrational one, based solely on ignorance and prejudice against homosexuals," Judge Robert Smith wrote in the majority opinion.
Mr Smith said that because same-sex marriage was not deeply rooted in history and tradition, banning it was not a violation of fundamental rights and liberties. He said that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples could be justified to protect the welfare of children.
"Despite the advances of science, it remains true that the vast majority of children are born as a result of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman. Intuition and experience suggest that a child benefits from having before his or her eyes, every day, living models of what both a man and a woman are like," he wrote.
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Judith Kaye argued that the state's interest in a stable society is rationally advanced when families are established and remain intact, irrespective of the sex of the spouses.
"The ability or desire to procreate is not a prerequisite for marriage. The elderly are permitted to marry, and many same-sex couples do indeed have children," she wrote.
She said there were other legitimate ways to encourage people to raise children, such as subsidising childcare or requiring employers to provide family leave for parents.
"Marriage is about much more than producing children, yet same-sex couples are excluded from the entire spectrum of protections that come with civil marriage - purportedly to encourage other people to procreate," she wrote.
Conservative Christian groups welcomed the New York and Georgia rulings, which they hope will move the gay marriage issue out of the courts and into the political arena.
"These rulings represent a significant victory for America's families and, I hope, signal an awareness by the judicial branch that the people don't want courts acting as super-legislatures," James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said.
Gay rights activists expressed disappointment, predicting that future generations would condemn the New York ruling as misguided. Massachusetts is the only US state to allow gay marriage.