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A federal appeals court will consider both challenges to Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage together.

Plaintiffs in a Harrisonburg challenge to the state’s ban on same-sex marriage can intervene in the challenge pending in Norfolk, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also put the case on the fast track, calling for briefs to be filed by March 28, with argument set for May 12-15.

Last month, a federal judge in Norfolk struck down the 2006 amendment to the state Constitution that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. In that case, Bostic v Rainey, U.S. District Court Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen found the amendment to be in violation of the United States Constitution but stayed her ruling pending a decision by the appeals court.

The ACLU in August filed a complaint on behalf of two same-sex couples from the Shenandoah Valley area — a case that is pending before a federal court in Harrisonburg. In late January the judge in that case certified it as a class action.

Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia filed the motion to intervene in the Norfolk case on behalf of a class of all Virginia’s same-sex couples.