The European Court of Justice, siting in Strasbourg, has just upheld on human rights grounds a Proposition 8 mirror-image law in Austria that bans same-sex marriage. The European Union’s high court found that the Austrian Proposition 8 clone is “not incompatible with the International Convention on Human Rights”. Six of 47 countries that signed the U.N.’s International Convention on Human Rights allow same-sex marriage, and a case brought against Austria by a gay couple from Vienna sought to serve as a leading case to establish precedent under Article 14 of the Convention (discrimination) in the European Union to knock out traditional marriage laws throughout Europe on human rights grounds. But the Court determined under Article 8 of the Convention (procedural) and Article 9 of the separate E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights, the question of whether or not to allow same-sex marriage is left to regulation “by the national law of the contracting state”. That’s a pretty good decision. Maybe these United Nations types really aren’t conspiring against us.
