NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge upheld Louisiana's ban on same-sex marriages on Wednesday, a rare loss for gay marriage supporters who had won more than 20 consecutive rulings overturning bans in other states.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman also upheld the state's refusal to recognize same-sex marriages performed legally in other states. His ruling was the first to uphold a state ban since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act last year.

Feldman himself acknowledged that his won't be the final word. "Clearly, many other courts will have an opportunity to take up the issue of same-sex marriage; courts of appeals and, at some point, the U.S. Supreme Court," he wrote. "The decision of this Court is but one studied decision among many."

Gay rights advocates said they would carry the case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which already has before it an appeal by the state of Texas of another federal judge's ruling that struck down that state's gay marriage ban.

In 2004, 78 percent of Louisiana voters approved an amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage. Gay marriage is legal in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

Isabel Medina, a professor at the Loyola University New Orleans law school, said she didn't see the ruling as a significant road block for gay marriage advocates. Even a 5th Circuit decision upholding Feldman's ruling would affect only three states: Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, she noted.

It's likely the Texas case will be the first to go to the 5th Circuit, and cases elsewhere likely will reach the Supreme Court before Louisiana's, said Professor Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond School of Law in Virginia. Nevertheless, he said, Feldman's ruling is significant.

"It is important, because Feldman is a very experienced federal district judge, and no other federal judge has ruled that way at the trial level," Tobias said in a telephone interview. Feldman was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

Feldman said gay marriage supporters failed to prove that the ban violates equal protection or due process provisions of the U.S. Constitution. He also rejected an argument that the ban violated the First Amendment by effectively forcing legally married gay couples to state that they are single on Louisiana income tax returns.

Feldman sided with the state, which had argued that the nation's high court, in the Defense of Marriage Act decision, recognized the rights of state voters and legislatures to define marriage.

"Although opinions about same-sex marriage will understandably vary among the states, and other states in free and open debate will and have chosen differently, that does not mandate that Louisiana has overstepped its sovereign authority," he wrote.

The conservative Louisiana Family Forum praised the ruling.

"This ruling confirms that the people of Louisiana — not the federal courts — have the constitutional right to decide how marriage is defined in this state," Gene Mills, the group's president, said in a news release.

Gay marriage advocates argued that the ban violated constitutional due process and equal-protection rights.

"Every citizen of the United States deserves protection of their rights, uphill climb or not," said Mary Griggs, chairwoman of Forum for Equality Louisiana.

Feldman said the Supreme Court decision "correctly discredited" the Defense of Marriage Act's effect on New York law legalizing same-sex unions. But he also noted language in the decision outlining the states' historic authority to recognize and define marriage.

He also said that neither the Supreme Court nor the 5th Circuit has defined gay people as a protected class in discrimination cases.

"In light of still-binding precedent, this Court declines to fashion a new suspect class. To do so would distort precedent and demean the democratic process," Feldman wrote.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is currently considering arguments over six gay marriage cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Two other appellate courts, the 10th Circuit in Denver and the 4th Circuit in Virginia, have overturned statewide gay marriage bans in Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia. However, those rulings and others overturning gay marriage bans have been put on hold while appeals are considered.

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Associated Press reporter Janet McConnaughey contributed to this report.

WSJ Live
Obama: Degrade and Destroy Islamic State Threat

BAGHDAD (AP) — Militants from the Islamic State group carried out a mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured when the extremists overran a military base north of Baghdad in June, a leading international watchdog said Wednesday.

The incident at Camp Speicher, an air base that previously served as a U.S. military facility, was one of the worst atrocities perpetrated by the Islamic State group as it seized large swaths of northern and western Iraq.

According to Human Rights Watch, new evidence indicates Islamic State fighters killed between 560 and 770 men captured at Camp Speicher, near the city of Tikrit — a figure several times higher than what was initially reported.

"These are horrific and massive abuses, atrocities by the Islamic State, and on a scale that clearly rises to the crimes against humanity," Fred Abrahams, special adviser to group, told journalists in the northern city of Irbil.

The al-Qaida-breakaway claimed in mid-June that it "executed" about 1,700 soldiers and military personnel from Camp Speicher.

The group also posted graphic photos that appeared to show its gunmen massacring scores of Iraqi soldiers after loading the captives onto flatbed trucks and then forcing them to lie face-down in a shallow ditch, their arms tied behind their backs.

After the incident, the soldiers were listed as missing, prompting their families to stage demonstrations in Baghdad in an effort to pressure authorities for word on their sons' fate. On Tuesday, dozens of angry family members stormed into the parliament in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone after scuffling with security guards. They forced the speaker to call a session Wednesday on the missing soldiers.

Human Rights Watch said in late June that analysis of photos and satellite images showed that between 160 and 190 men were killed in at least two locations between June 11 and 14.

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FILE - This file image posted on a militant website on Saturday, June 14, 2014, which has been verif …

The new Human Rights Watch report said the revised figure for the slain soldiers was based on analysis of new satellite imagery, militant videos and a survivor's account that confirmed the existence of three more "mass execution sites." The number of victims may well be even higher as more evidence emerges, it said.

"The barbarity of the Islamic State violates the law and grossly offends the conscience," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.

At Wednesday's parliament session, the soldiers' families accused authorities of "selling our sons" by ordering many of the soldiers to abandon their posts and leave Camp Speicher in civilian clothes.

Once outside the base, hundreds were captured, said Mohammed al-Assi, a representative for the soldiers' families.

However, acting Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi denied any orders to abandon Camp Speicher.

During the parliament session, survivor Thaer Abdul-Karim told lawmakers that a military commander ordered the soldiers in Speicher on June 12 to leave the camp and hand over their weapons .

Abdul-Karim said the commander told the troops that there were military trucks waiting for them at a nearby highway to take them to a base near Baghdad. Instead, the soldiers, in civilian clothes, were taken by gunmen who were waiting for them on the highway.

The gunmen later ordered batches of prisoners to go out and started to shoot them.

"We panicked after seeing our colleagues being shot dead," Abdul-Karim said. "There was a state of chaos and some started to run away and I managed to escape from the place."

Also Wednesday, the U.N. envoy in Iraq called for a public and independent investigation by Iraqi authorities into the fate of the missing soldiers and the recovery of the remains of those killed. Outgoing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that a number of "perpetrators" of Camp Speicher atrocities have been arrested or killed and that "security forces were pursuing" others. Al-Maliki did not elaborate.

The onslaught by the Islamic State group has stunned Iraq's security forces and the military, which melted away as the extremists advanced and captured key cities and towns. The militants also targeted Iraq's indigenous religious minorities, including Christians and followers of the ancient Yazidi faith, forcing tens of thousands from their homes.

Since then, the Islamic State group has carved out a self-styled caliphate in the large area straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border that it now controls.

In early August, the United States launched airstrikes on the militant group in Iraq, in an effort to help Iraqi forces fight back against the growing militant threat.

On Tuesday, the Islamic State group released a video showing the beheading of American-Israeli journalist, Steven Sotloff, and warned President Barack Obama that continuing airstrikes against the group in Iraq will be met with the killing of more Western captives. The footage was posted two weeks after the release of a video showing the killing of U.S. journalist James Foley.

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ISIL killed 770 Iraqi soldiers, group says

Islamic militants carried out a massacre at Camp Speicher near the city of Tikrit in June.
Figure higher than initially reported

The publisher of a series of anti-terrorism coloring books for children is rereleasing them in the wake of the brutal execution of American journalists by Islamic militants.

The titles — "We Shall Never Forget 9/11: Kids' Book of Freedom" (price: $4.99) and "The True Faces of Evil Global Terrorism" ($6.99, includes trading cards) — are available through the website of Really Big Coloring Books, and include a complimentary supplement ("The Terror Update on Global Jihad") that addresses the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the group responsible for the killings.

“These books tell the truth, they tell it often, and they tell the children,” Wayne Bell, founder of the St. Louis-based publisher, announced last week in a video message. “These are books that actually explain what’s going on today."

The company, which publishes plenty of noncontroversial titles (including "Princes & Butterflies," "Dinosaurs" and "U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz Comic Coloring and Activity Book"), distributed copies of the updated anti-terrorism series to departments of education in all 50 states as well as the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C., Bell said.

"We’re trying to educate the country on these animals, these brutal people, these terrible humans on the planet called ISIS," he continued.

According to the Daily Beast, one of the supplements on ISIL depicts a crucifixion (“This is what ISIS wants to bring to America and its people," the page reads); another shows the five Taliban detainees released in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. (“Obama administration broke the law by freeing 5 Taliban terrorists,” it reads. “Back to the battlefield.”)

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A page from one of Really Big Coloring Books' line of anti-terrorism coloring books for kids. (Reall …

"These products are complicated and require adult supervision while addressing the murders of innocent Christian children, adults and also the annihilation of entire families," the company said in a press release. "'Brutal' is hardly the word for it. Savage, barbaric, and animalistic is a little bit more accurate. In an effort to explain and educate today's youth about this hardcore cultural subject, the terrorist must be discussed with open dialogue both inside the Islamic community, and in the global community as a whole."

Bell said he's received hate mail and death threats since the company started publishing coloring books from its so-called cultural event division.

"We recently even got a letter from the White House telling us they were not very happy with us teaching children the word 'terror,'" Bell said. (The letter appears to be an email from a White House staffer.)

And rights groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, have slammed the material as anti-Muslim propaganda. But Bell dismisses such criticism.

"This is not about the Islamic faith, this is not about Muslim people," he said. "This is about radical Islamic Muslim terrorist extremists, and we will not stop publishing these books."

He added: "We make these books because parents ask for them. If they didn't want them they wouldn't buy them."

Outrage over antiterrorism children's book

A St. Louis-based company is slammed by Islamic groups for publishing material seen as anti-Muslim propaganda.
References ISIL

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department plans to open a wide-ranging investigation into the practices of the Ferguson, Missouri, Police Department following the shooting last month of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb, a person briefed on the matter said Wednesday night.

The person said the investigation could be announced as early as Thursday afternoon. Missouri officials were notified Wednesday of the probe.

The investigation will look at the practices in the past few years of the police department, including patterns of stops, arrests and use-of-force, as well as the training the officers receive, the person said.

The inquiry is separate from an ongoing civil rights investigation the Justice Department is conducting into the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9. A local grand jury is also investigating the shooting, which set off about two weeks of unrest in the streets of Ferguson and became a flashpoint in the national discussion of police treatment of minorities across the country. Attorney General Eric Holder two weeks ago visited the St. Louis suburb, where he met with investigators and Brown's parents and shared personal experiences of having himself been mistreated by the police.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation, first reported by The Washington Post, had not yet been announced.

Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson did not immediately return a call seeking comment about the Justice Department investigation.

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Police is riot gear work to disperse a crowd of protesters Monday, Aug. 18, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo. T …

Police have said the shooting followed a scuffle that broke out after Wilson told Brown and a friend to move out of the street and onto a sidewalk. Police say Wilson was pushed into his squad car and physically assaulted. Some witnesses have reported seeing Brown's arms up in the air before the shooting in an act of surrender. An autopsy paid for by Brown's family concluded that he was shot six times, twice in the head.

The new investigation, though, goes far beyond the circumstances of the shooting. It will look at the actions of a police department that is predominantly white even though Ferguson is about 70 percent black.

Some in Ferguson have said police disproportionately target black motorists during traffic stops. A 2013 report by the Missouri attorney general's office found that Ferguson police stopped and arrested black drivers nearly twice as frequently as white motorists but were also less likely to find contraband among the black drivers.

The Justice Department's civil rights division routinely investigates individual police departments when there are allegations of systemic use-of-force violations, racial bias or other problems. The department says it's opened more than twice as many investigations into police department in the past five years as were opened in the previous five years. Among those that have recently come under investigation is the Albuquerque, New Mexico, department, which was the subject of a harshly critical report in April that faulted the police for a pattern of excessive force and called for an overhaul of its internal affairs unit.

Normally, the federal investigation encourages significant changes to policies and practices. The investigations sometimes end in an agreement known as a consent decree, which lays out changes that the department must make.

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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

Moscow (AFP) - Islamic State militants have issued a threat to President Vladimir Putin, vowing to oust him and "liberate" the volatile North Caucasus over his support of the Syrian regime.

The General Prosecutor's Office of Russia demanded that access to the address, which was posted on YouTube on Tuesday and features what jihadists say is a Russian-supplied fighter jet, be blocked.

"This is a message to you, oh Vladimir Putin, these are the jets that you have sent to Bashar, we will send them to you, God willing, remember that," said one fighter in Arabic, according to Russian-language captions provided in the video.

"And we will liberate Chechnya and the entire Caucasus, God willing," said the militant. "The Islamic State is and will be and it is expanding God willing."

"Your throne has already teetered, it is under threat and will fall when we come to you because Allah is truly on our side," said the fighter. "We are already on our way God willing."

In the same video, several fighters, some dressed in traditional Muslim robes, threaten Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad from atop the fighter jet.

"This is Russian equipment," says a voice, speaking in accented Russian, as the camera cuts to a close-up of the plane's cabin.

The Prosecutor's Office said it requested that investigators open a criminal probe into the video.

The Kremlin fought two wars with separatists in Chechnya over the past 20 years. The unrest has since engulfed the entire North Caucasus including Dagestan and Ingushetia where attacks on authorities are a regular occurence.

The Kremlin, whose attention over past months has focused on the Ukraine crisis, is one of the main backers of the Assad regime, providing it with diplomatic and military support in its fight against rebels.

The Islamic State, a Sunni extremist group, has gained prominence in recent months, declaring an Islamic "caliphate" in regions under its control in Iraq and Syria.

The militants stirred a global outcry last month when they beheaded US journalist James Foley. The fighters said on Tuesday they had beheaded a second US journalist, Steven Sotloff.

Islamic militants vow to dethrone Putin

Members of ISIL promise to make Russia pay for supplying Syria's Bashar Assad with military support.
'We are already on our way'