The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday launched a legal challenge to Pennsylvania’s ban on gay marriage, part of a flurry of lawsuits filed since last month’s Supreme Court ruling on federal benefits for same-sex couples.
WASHINGTON — The ACLU on Tuesday announced a trio of lawsuits that will test the constitutionality of state laws barring same-sex marriage.
The suits, filed in Pennsylvania and North Carolina with another to come in Virginia, are part of a carefully crafted effort to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s recent same-sex-marriage ruling striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. That law, known as DOMA, barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.
Legal challenges to state same-sex-marriage bans have popped up in other places since the Supreme Court’s decision last month. But the ACLU was a central figure in the DOMA case, United States v. Windsor, and it has the resources to launch a coordinated, potent campaign in the states.
The lawsuit in Pennsylvania, the only Northeast state that bans gay marriage and does not allow civil unions, focuses on the state’s refusal to recognize other states’ legally performed same-sex marriages. Many said after the Supreme Court ruling that such a stance now might be legally vulnerable.
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WASHINGTON — The ACLU on Tuesday announced a trio of lawsuits that will test the constitutionality of state laws barring same-sex marriage.
The suits, filed in Pennsylvania and North Carolina with another to come in Virginia, are part of a carefully crafted effort to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s recent same-sex-marriage ruling striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. That law, known as DOMA, barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.
Legal challenges to state same-sex-marriage bans have popped up in other places since the Supreme Court’s decision last month. But the ACLU was a central figure in the DOMA case, United States v. Windsor, and it has the resources to launch a coordinated, potent campaign in the states.
The lawsuit in Pennsylvania, the only Northeast state that bans gay marriage and does not allow civil unions, focuses on the state’s refusal to recognize other states’ legally performed same-sex marriages. Many said after the Supreme Court ruling that such a stance now might be legally vulnerable.
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