Saturday, April 12, 2014

There Are Only 5 States Whose Marriage Equality Bans Are Not (Currently) Being Challenged In Court

This is an interesting factoid. There are currently only 5 states where bans on same-sex marriage are NOT currently being challenged in court (North dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Georgia, and Montana). There are 17 states that have marriage equality right now. There are 30 states with more than 65 lawsuits (44 of which are federal cases) pending against their bans on same-sex marriage, according to Lambda Legal, reports the Washington Post:
Heterosexual-only marriage is safe in just five states, for now at least.   
Gay marriage is now legal in 17 states and bans are being challenged in 30, according to the latest count from Lambda Legal, a pro-gay marriage organization. (Hawaii and Illinois allow gay marriage, but legal technicalities  to aspects of their laws are still being ironed out in the courts.) The five states with bans on gay marriage that stand unchallenged are: Alaska, Georgia, Montana, North Dakota  and South Dakota.  
The five unchallenged state gay marriage bans may not stand for long. Already, a South Dakota couple has plans to challenge their state ban. And  the Supreme Court could soon weigh in.
It's unlikely the Supreme Court will really weigh in on the marriage equality question before the end of the 2014-15 term, and that's only if one of the appellate cases (the first of which was heard on Thursday in Denver before the 10th U.S. Circuit) rockets to their docket before the end of this year, which certainly is possible.

I think the 5 states that currently do not have marriage equality lawsuits says more about the lack of
organized LGBT infrastructure in those states than whether there are people who would benefit if those bans were also removed.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The map doesn't show Puerto Rico, but Lambda Legal counts it as one of the thirty that are in court. That plus DC is how the numbers add up to 52, if anyone who did the arithmetic wondered.

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin