Federal judge rules in favor of Ohio same-sex couple married out-of-state

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Federal judge rules in favor of Ohio same-sex couple married out-of-state

July 23, 2013 11:09:32 am

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio [official website] on Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] in favor of two men seeking recognition of their out-of-state same-sex marriage. Ohio law prohibits same-sex marriage but recognizes marriages solemnized outside of the state. James Obergefell and his partner, John Arthur, who suffers from a terminal illness, married legally in Maryland earlier this month and returned to Ohio where they have resided for nearly 20 years. Arthur seeks to include Obergefell as his surviving spouse on his death certificate. The parties, accordingly, filed suit requesting that the court preliminarily enjoin enforcement of Ohio’s same-sex marriage prohibition. The plaintiffs were required to show, among other things, a substantial likelihood that they would prevail on the merits at trial. The court granted their motion Tuesday, finding:

In derogation of law, the Ohio scheme has unjustifiably created two tiers of couples: (1) opposite-sex married couples legally married in other states; and (2) same-sex married couples legally married in other states. This lack of equal protection of law is fatal. … Plaintiffs have established a substantial likelihood that they will prevail at trial on their claim that by treating lawful same sex marriages differently than it treats lawful opposite sex marriages Ohio law, as applied here, violates the United States Constitution which guarantees that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws.”

According to media sources, the decision is likely to encourage [AP report] same-sex couples to challenge restrictive marriage laws in other states.

The heated debate over same-sex marriage [JURIST backgrounder] is one of the most polarizing issues currently facing the American legal community. Last week the San Diego County Clerk filed a petition [JURIST report] with the Supreme Court of California on Friday seeking to require county clerks to enforce Proposition 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban. Earlier in July three same-sex couples filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging Arkansas’ same-sex marriage ban. The plaintiffs argue that Amendment 83 to the Arkansas Constitution, which reads, “Marriage consists only of the union of one man and one woman,” violates their rights to equal protection and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. Also in July, the Supreme Court of California rejected [JURIST report] a request from Proposition 8 supporters to halt same-sex marriages.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.