FOR THE RECORD (Published Wednesday, May 28, 2014) - The Dover Area School District, which lost a 2005 federal court case over the inclusion of intelligent design in its curriculum, is in York County. A story in Sunday's paper placed the school district in the wrong county.







For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. Until death do us part.

Those familiar marriage vows formed the unique framework upon which U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III hung the facts in support of his ruling Tuesday that gay and lesbian couples in Pennsylvania have the same rights to marry as anyone else.

"They have purchased homes together and blended their property and finances. They have started families, welcoming children through birth and adoption. Some of them have celebrated their commitment to each other through marriage in other states, sharing their wedding day with family and friends," Jones wrote.

But those joys of marriage for same-sex couples in Pennsylvania came with hardships: taxes on shared property that married heterosexual couples were not required to pay; the expensive process of adopting a partner's biological child; losing their marital status when they cross state lines.

At the end of his 39-page opinion, Jones found that Pennsylvania's 1996 laws banning gay marriage and blocking the recognition of same-sex weddings performed in other states prevented Pennsylvanians from fully exercising the fundamental right to marriage and violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

"We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history," Jones concluded.

In a telephone interview two days after the ruling, Jones, 58, of Pottsville, declined to discuss his reasoning in the marriage equality case, saying it is prudent to let the opinion speak for itself.

He said he recognized that he was writing for a broad audience and used the structure of the opinion, with its subheadings drawn from traditional marriage vows, to make clear what rights were at stake.

"We knew that it was going to be widely disseminated, and widely noticed," Jones said. "We had to assume that it might be appealed and that I might not have the last word."

Mark Aronchick, whose Philadelphia law firm joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania in challenging the gay marriage ban, said that Jones' decision to build his findings of fact around the marriage vows made the text unusually compelling.

"When you finish that section, you clearly understand this is a matter of monumental significance," Aronchick said.

The opinion sparked celebrations and sent same-sex couples to apply for marriage licenses at courthouses across the state.

"I just can't believe everyone is so happy for us. It's very overwhelming," Michael Pletcher of Allentown said Wednesday at the Lehigh County Courthouse after securing a license to marry his partner of 29 years.

Also Wednesday, Gov. Tom Corbett announced that he didn't believe an appeal would succeed and he would let Jones' decision stand unchallenged.

Jones said that came as a surprise.

"It is remarkable when you write something as a district court and you find out within the week that it is the final decision," he said.

Jones' ruling, which made Pennsylvania the 19th state to achieve marriage equality, is the second history-making decision in the judge's 12-year career on the federal bench. In a trial that generated national attention in 2005, Jones ruled that a Lancaster County school district could not teach a theory of creationism called "intelligent design" in science classes.

That decision caught some conservatives off guard. As did last week's decision. In reporting the marriage equality ruling, many media outlets highlighted that Jones was appointed to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush in 2002 and on the recommendation of then Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, whose politics veered to the far right.

Politics doesn't factor into his decisions, Jones said.

"I'm not responsible to any political party or benefactor or even to the person who appointed me. I'm responsible to the Constitution," he said.

A Schuylkill County native, Jones began his legal career as the proprietor of a one-lawyer firm and ascended to a modest position as chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board in former Republican Gov. Tom Ridge's administration before his appointment to the bench.

Lawyers involved in Pennsylvania's marriage equality case and those who have worked by Jones' side say he is a hardworking and disciplined judge who had the fate of deciding two of the most polarizing constitutional questions the state has seen in the last decade.

"He's just the kind of judge you want on the bench," said Ned Madeira, a retired Philadelphia lawyer who served with Jones on the state Commission on Justice Initiatives, where they worked to address issues of public trust and accountability in the state judiciary. "He requires lawyers to do their work. He runs his courtroom well, and every once in a while, he writes up a storm."

As in the marriage equality decision, Jones delivered a strongly worded opinion that teaching intelligent design â€” the theory that living things are too complex to have evolved without input from a higher being â€” was a violation of the Constitution's establishment clause, which requires the separation of church and state.

He called the theory "creationism repackaged" and described the Dover Area School Board's decision to add it to the middle school curriculum an act of "breathtaking inanity." He rejected the board's claims that its inclusion served a secular purpose of informing students of alternate viewpoints and teaching them to think critically, calling them "insincere" and a "sham."

In both the intelligent design and the marriage equality decisions, Jones acknowledged they would be unpopular with members of the religious right.

"Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge," Jones wrote in his Dover opinion. "If so, they have erred, as this is manifestly not an activist court."

The intelligent design decision brought a storm of criticism upon Jones from conservative commentators in the media. He was accused of being an arrogant judge who issued an uninformed rant about intelligent design and betrayed those who put him on the bench.