Ellen Rosenblum 01.31.14

Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum

(Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian)

SALEM -- Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a legal filing Thursday that she will not defend the state's ban on gay marriage and argued that the ban "cannot withstand a federal constitutional challenge under any standard of review."

What the decision means

Read

and see a U.S. map on the status of gay marriage by state.

See a short video of senior politics reporters

the decision's impact.

Rosenblum's

filed in Eugene with U.S. District Judge Michael McShane, who is hearing a legal challenge to the ban on same-sex marriage that was placed in the state Constitution by voters in 2004.

Rosenblum wrote:

Federal judges in several states have struck down similar bans in recent months, saying that they conflict with last year's U.S. Supreme Court decision striking major provisions of a law prohibiting federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

Rosenblum's action means that both the plaintiffs -- who include four same-sex couples -- and the main defendant in the case oppose the ban as unconstitutional. Attorneys involved in the case have

as early as late spring or summer.

At the same time, supporters of gay marriage are nearly done with their effort to collect enough signatures to put an initiative on the November ballot asking voters to strike the ban on gay marriage from the state Constitution and allow same-sex couples to marry.

In an early legal filing in the case, the attorney general's office said there were "serious and significant questions" about the ban and that the legal questions were "ultimately for the court to decide."

-- Jeff Mapes