Arkansas judge revises ruling so gays can wed
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Gay marriages quickly resumed in Arkansas yesterday after a state judge whose previous order had sown confusion among county clerks expanded his ruling to remove all vestiges of same-sex marriage bans from the state’s laws.
The Arkansas Supreme Court had said on Wednesday that a law that kept clerks from issuing marriage licenses to samesex couples remained on the books, despite the ruling last week by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza that declared gay-marriage bans unconstitutional.
Piazza revised his order yesterday, saying no one in the state was harmed by the 456 marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples after his order and until the Supreme Court ruled. He rejected the state’s request to put his decision on hold, saying gay couples would be harmed by that action.
Seventeen other states allow gay marriage. Judges have struck down bans in Idaho, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Virginia.
But in Idaho, plans for samesex marriages to begin today were put on hold as the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals considered whether the governor and attorney general should have more time to file an appeal of a judge’s ruling overturning its state ban.
Arkansas voters had added a gay-marriage ban to the state’s constitution in 2004, the same year Ohio voters voted to define marriage as between one man and one woman.
Yesterday, gay-marriage supporters delivered a petition with more than 6,000 signatures to Ohio’s attorney general urging him to drop an appeal of a federal court decision tossing out the state’s ban on same-sex marriages.
The state is fighting Judge Timothy Black’s ruling that orders Ohio to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. Most of the judge’s April 14 ruling was put on hold pending the anticipated appeal.
Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine has said that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that he will continue defending Ohio’s voter-approved gay marriage ban, passed overwhelmingly in 2004.
Lawyers for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said yesterday that the state’s 1996 ban should remain in place despite a request by a lesbian couple for recognition of their Massachusetts marriage.
In Arkansas, the clerk in Pulaski County, which includes Little Rock, resumed issuing licenses to gay couples quickly after Piazza’s revised ruling, granting 11 of them by the close of business. Washington County, home to Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas, said it would resume issuing licenses today.
Four other counties that had been sued by gay couples seeking the right to marry said they would wait to hear from their lawyers or the state Supreme Court before proceeding. Carroll County, which wasn’t involved in the lawsuit but issued licenses on Saturday and Monday, also was awaiting legal advice.
None of the state’s other counties issued marriage licenses to gay couples. They aren’t covered by Piazza’s ruling, said Kenneth Gallant, a law professor at the University of Arkansas.
After the marriages resumed, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel asked the state Supreme Court for an emergency order stopping the distribution of gay-marriage licenses, despite his belief that gay couples should have the right to marry.
The state Supreme Court gave lawyers for gay couples until noon on Monday to file a response.