[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] filed a petition for certiorari [PDF] on behalf of same-sex couples in Ohio with the US Supreme Court [official website] on Friday asking the court to resolve a circuit split on the issue of same-sex marriage. Earlier this month the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] became the first federal court of appeals to uphold same-sex marriage bans [JURIST report], overturning lower court rulings in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee [JURIST reports]. The petition concerns two issues, namely the constitutionality of laws barring Ohio from recognizing same-sex marriages performed legally in other states, and the constitutionality of Ohio’s refusal to recognize a judgment of adoption of an Ohio-born child issued to a same-sex couple by the court of another state.

The legal landscape regarding issues surrounding the legality of same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples [JURIST backgrounders] have been rapidly changing in the US. On Wednesday the Supreme Court lifted a stay on the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses in Kansas, after Justice Sonia Sotomayor had issued an order [JURIST reports] blocking same-sex marriage in Kansas only a few days before. Also on Wednesday a judge for the US District Court for the District of South Carolina ordered state officials to stop enforcing [JURIST report] South Carolina’s same-sex marriage ban. And last week the US District for the Southern District of West Virginia struck down [JURIST report] that state’s ban on same-sex marriage. In October US Attorney General Eric Holder announced [JURIST report] that the federal government would recognize same sex marriage in Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming.