New York –(ENEWSPF)—August 6, 2014. Utah’s attorney general today filed an appeal asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the marriage case Kitchen v. Herbert. This is the first time a case about marriage for same-sex couples has been appealed to the Supreme Court since last year’s landmark ruling.
Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry, released the following statement:
“Today’s filing in the Utah case paves the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a marriage case later this year and bring national resolution on marriage once and for all. Every day, hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples and their children are suffering the tangible harms of not being free to marry. The sting of discrimination and the crazy quilt of marriage laws are not just wrong but unconstitutional. The momentum is clear, the hardships of denial are real, and the country is ready for the High Court to act.”
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled the so-called Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional in U.S. v. Windsor. Today, same-sex couples can marry in 19 states encompassing 44% of the country and are still banned from doing so in 56% of the country.
Since Windsor, 35 consecutive rulings from federal and state judges have concluded that excluding same-sex couples from marriage is unconstitutional, with no rulings to the contrary.
A lower federal court issued a ruling in Kitchen v. Herbert in December 2013 that overturned Utah’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples, which the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld in June. More than 1,300 same-sex couples were issued marriage licenses.
Freedom to Marry is the campaign to win marriage nationwide. We are pursuing our Roadmap to Victory by working to win the freedom to marry in more states, grow the national majority for marriage, and end federal marriage discrimination. We partner with individuals and organizations across the country to end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage and the protections, responsibilities, and commitment that marriage brings.
Source: http://www.freedomtomarry.org
