Marriage Equality Advances in Kansas and South Carolina
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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The first Same-Sex Couple married in Kansas, Angela and Kelli, poses in front of the Johnson County Courthouse in Olathe After Recieving their Marriage License and Getting Married before 9 a.m. on Friday, October 10, 2014.

 

The ruling, issued earlier this month from U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree, found that the Kansas constitution's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage violated the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the U.S. Constitution. Crabtree placed a one-week stay on his own ruling, ostensibly to give the state time to appeal.  As of Wednesday morning, Kansas was the only state in the 10th Circuit without marriage equality. After the Supreme Court last month refused to consider cases out of Oklahoma and Utah (also within the 10th Circuit), pro-equality decisions from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals became legally binding in all the states in the circuit. In the weeks after that decision, Colorado, followed by Wyoming, embraced marriage equality, while same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in New Mexico since December.

 

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Outside South Carolina's Federal Court Where Federal Judge Struck

 Same Sex Marriage Ban

A federal judge has struck down South Carolina's same-sex marriage ban, saying it's unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel on Wednesday, November 12, 2014  ruled against the state's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. But marriage licenses can't be immediately handed out. Gergel gave state Attorney General Alan Wilson a delay until Nov. 20. A spokesman for Wilson says he's reviewing the ruling.

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Last month, Colleen Condon and Nichols Bleckley applied for a same-sex marriage license in Charleston County.  The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to hear an appeal of a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing same-sex marriage in Virginia. That development opened the way for same-sex marriages in other states in the 4th Circuit. South Carolina was the only state in the circuit refusing to allow such marriages.

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