Federal judge upholds Louisiana ban on gay marriage

In the first defeat for gay marriage advocates since the Supreme Court's landmark rulings last summer, a federal judge in Louisiana on Wednesday upheld the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman wrote that same-sex marriage was "nonexistent and even inconceivable until very recently," and that "until recent years, it had no place at all in this nation's history and tradition." Though the notion that same-sex marriage is a fundamental right has become more accepted in the past few years, Feldman ruled that the idea was "not yet so entrenched as to be fundamental."

So, breaking with more than a dozen other courts to have ruled on the issue in the past year, Feldman concluded that the state has a "legitimate interest under a rational basis standard of review for addressing the meaning of marriage through the democratic process."

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The plaintiffs in the case said they would appeal the decision to the 5th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals.