Michael Winter

USA TODAY

With the Supreme Court in line to decide whether states can bar same-sex couples from marrying, lower federal courts cleared the way Friday for gays and lesbians to tie the knot in Kansas and Missouri.

In Denver, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request from the Kansas attorney general to keep same-sex marriages from beginning Tuesday at 5 p.m., when a lower-court injunction expires.

Tuesday, U.S. District Court judge Daniel Crabtree ruled the state's marriage discrimination violated the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, and he issued a one-week injunction to allow Kansas to appeal.

Friday evening, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said he would ask the Supreme Court to block same-sex marriages until the constitutional issues are settled.

Noting the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling Thursday upholding such bans in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, Schmidt said that before Tuesday he would ask Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who handles appeals from the 10th Circuit, to stay Crabtree's injunction.

"Because the federal District Court's injunction will effectively disable a provision in the Kansas Constitution, I believe I have a duty to exhaust all of the state's options for appeal," Schmidt said in a statement.



In Kansas City, Mo., meanwhile, a federal district court judge Friday struck down the state's marriage ban, and, like his Kansas counterpart, delayed its implementation pending the outcome of appeals to either the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said he would appeal the ruling by U.S. District Judge Ortrie Smith, who declared that a Missouri law and an amendment to the state constitution violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of due process and equal protection.

"There is no hardship in requiring that public officials adhere to the Constitution, and the public interest is always served when the Constitution is obeyed," Smith wrote in his opinion.

Nonetheless, same-sex couples began marrying in and around Kansas City, two days after a state judge in St. Louis invalidated the measures.

Gays and lesbians began getting licences in St. Louis on Wednesday, but Koster did not seek to stop the marriages.

A retired judge performed a marriage ceremony Friday for John Kenny Rodricks and Robert Gann at the Jackson County courthouse