Holpuch reports: "A federal judge on Thursday ordered Kentucky to immediately recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states."



A box of cupcakes topped with icons of same-sex couples. (photo: Stephen Lam/Reuters)

Judge Orders Kentucky to Recognize Same-Sex Marriages From Other States

By Amanda Holpuch, Guardian UK

State attorney general asks to delay effect for 90 days



Attorney for couples: 'We're cautiously optimistic'

federal judge on Thursday ordered Kentucky to immediately recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

The order from US district judge John G Heyburn II makes official a 12 February ruling in which he said the state's denial of recognition of the marriages violates the constitutional guarantee to equal protection under law.

Ahead of Heyburn's release of the order, Kentucky's attorney general, Jack Conway, asked the judge to delay its going into effect by 90 days. Conway said the delay would give him the time to decide whether to appeal the ruling and allow the state to prepare to implement the order. Heyburn has not yet ruled on Conway's request.

"To the extent [that state laws] deny validly married same-sex couples equal recognition and benefits under Kentucky and federal law, those laws violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and they are void and unenforceable," Heyburn wrote in Thursday's two-sentence order.

Dan Canon, the attorney representing the four same-sex couples who won the case, told the Courier Journal: "We are cautiously optimistic. The order has been granted without qualification and without a stay."

In his original opinion, Heyburn said parts of Kentucky's voter-approved 2004 state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman violated the US constitution.

"It is clear that Kentucky's laws treat gay and lesbian persons differently in a way that demeans them," Heyburn said.

Conway and Governor Steve Beshear, both Democrats, are defendants in the lawsuit, which was brought by four same-sex couples who married in other US states and Canada.

Heyburn is due to rule this spring on a case asking the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Heyburn, who was appointed to the bench by then-president George HW Bush in 1992, is the first federal judge nominated by a Republican president to rule on the side of same-sex marriage advocates since the landmark June 2013 supreme court ruling that struck down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Since that decision, several federal judges have ruled state bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. On Wednesday, US district judge Orlando Garcia struck down Texas's ban on same-sex marriage, because it "demeans the dignity" of same-sex couples.

Garcia stayed his ruling, so his decision has not yet changed the state's marriage practices.