{"id":887,"date":"2014-05-13T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/?p=887"},"modified":"2014-05-20T10:40:20","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T15:40:20","slug":"this-week-in-marriage-alaska-arkansas-oregon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/archives\/887","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Marriage: Alaska, Arkansas, Oregon (Updated!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE:\u00a0<\/strong>Late on Tuesday, May 13th, Idaho’s<\/strong> marriage ban was ruled unconstitutional.<\/a> The governor has vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Arkansas<\/strong> state trial judge Christopher Charles Piazza has struck down another ban on marriage equality<\/a> on the basis of its unconstitutionality. In his 13-page ruling, he wrote, \u201cThe exclusion of a minority for no rational reason is a dangerous precedent.\u201d References were to SCOTUS\u2019 discredited ruling in the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford<\/em> that stated black people \u201chad no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them\u201d and Loving v. Virginia <\/em>which eliminated bans on interracial marriage. \u201cIt has been over forty years since Mildred Loving was given the right to marry the person of her choice.\u00a0 The hatred and fears have long since vanished and she and her husband lived full lives together; so it will be for the same-sex couples.\u00a0 It is time to let that beacon of freedom shine brighter on all our brothers and sisters.\u00a0 We will be stronger for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case will most likely go to the 8th<\/sup> Circuit Court of Appeals which upheld Nebraska\u2019s ban on same-sex marriage in 2006. That decision was made before United States v. Windsor, <\/em>which found a key part of DOMA to be unconstitutional and which Piazza heavily referenced. Another lawsuit against Arkansas\u2019 ban is pending in a Little Rock federal district court. More than 70 lawsuits seeking marriage equality are pending in 30 states.<\/p>\n

The day after the judge\u2019s ruling, almost 20 licenses were awarded to same-sex couples in Eureka Springs<\/a>, the only place in the state that handles license applications on Saturday. The sheriff closed the office at 1:00 pm as usual. Whether these marriages are legal remains to be seen because the lawsuit listed only six counties, and Eureka Springs is not in one of these. On Monday, Pulaski County and five others counties named in the lawsuit may begin issuing marriage license to same-sex couples. The other counties are divided about whether they follow suit. The Department of Health, which issues birth certificates, and the Department of Finance and Administration, which processes tax returns, must also comply with the judge\u2019s orders unless a stay is issued. The state has requested a stay. If Piazza refuses, the state Supreme Court could receive a request for one. The U.S. Justice Department has ordered federal agencies to recognize all same-sex marriages that are legal when entered into.<\/p>\n

In Oregon<\/strong>, a proposed measure to allow business owners to discriminate against same-sex couples in marrying has been withdrawn <\/a>the week after it was ready for collecting almost 88,000 signatures before July 1, 2014. Friends of Religious Freedom complained that the ballot language by the state attorney general\u2019s office was unacceptable because it made the initiative seem intolerant. The approved description for a \u201cYes\u201d vote reads \u201ccreates \u2018religious belief\u2019 exceptions to anti-discrimination laws.\u201d The organization now plans to pursue lawsuits on behalf of business owners objecting to same-sex weddings.<\/p>\n

In other Oregon news, the National Organization of Marriage was unable to publicly announce the name of a single Oregonian in their bid to take over defense of the state’s marriage ban after the state’s Attorney General said she would no longer defend the ban.<\/p>\n

Alaska\u00a0<\/strong>residents filed a case in a U.S. District Court this week challenging their state’s ban on same sex marriage. <\/a>Five couples have signed on as plaintiffs and they have named a number of government officials including the governor and state attorney general as defendants. This leaves the only three states without a marriage equality case on the books as Montana and the Dakotas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE:\u00a0Late on Tuesday, May 13th, Idaho’s marriage ban was ruled unconstitutional. The governor has vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court. Arkansas state trial judge Christopher Charles Piazza has struck down another ban on marriage equality on the basis of its unconstitutionality. In his 13-page ruling, he wrote, \u201cThe exclusion of a minority […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-glbt-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}