On May 12, 2005, United States District Judge Joseph Bataillon ruled that Initiative Measure 416 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and was a bill of attainder in violation of the Contract Clause of Article I. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning appealed the decision to the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Eighth Circuit held that "laws limiting the state-recognized institution of marriage to heterosexual couples ... do not violate the Constitution of the United States.

Bruning was the only decision of a U.S. Court of Appeals to rule that a state ban on same-sex marriage comports with the U.S. Constitution[2] until the Sixth Circuit did so on November 6, 2014.

The uniting of two persons of the same sex in a civil union, domestic partnership, or other similar same-sex relationship shall not be valid or recognized in Nebraska.

[7] Next, relying primarily on the Supreme Court's 1996 decision in Romer v. Evans, he concluded the measure had "no rational relationship to any legitimate state interest," and thus violated the Equal Protection Clause.

[1] On February 13, 2006, the Court heard oral argument before Chief Judges James B. Loken, Pasco Bowman II, and Lavenski Smith.

'"[1] Nebraska argued that by "affording legal recognition and a basket of rights and benefits to married heterosexual couples," the initiative measure encouraged "procreation to take place within the socially recognized unit that is best situated for raising children.

"[1] The "bill of attainder concept of punishment ... does not include 'every Act of Congress or the States that legislatively burdens some persons or groups but not all other plausible individuals.