Today the Kansas Supreme Court delayed the hearing scheduled in a same-sex marriage case.
The court said the attorneys now had until Nov. 14 to show cause why the stay of a judge’s administrative order should or should not remain in effect pending the resolution of the case filed in federal district court. The Kansas attorney general has said he plans to appeal that federal case.
The Kansas Supreme Court action came after the U.S. District Court yesterday overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The federal ruling was temporarily stayed until Nov. 11.
While some of the federal courts are saying bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, the state’s attorney general has been defending the state’s ban because it was in the form of an amendment to the Kansas Constitution that was passed by voters in 2005.
The Kansas Supreme Court had scheduled a hearing on its same-sex marriage case for Nov. 6, hearing arguments to decide whether a Johnson County judge could direct the court clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That hearing now has been postponed indefinitely.
The Kansas Supreme Court also now has ordered the attorneys to show cause why the Supreme Court’s consideration of this action should or should not be stayed pending final resolution of the federal case.
“If [Attorney General Derek] Schmidt’s mandamus action in our court were to proceed, we would also likely reach the same constitutional questions reviewed in ‘Marie’ [the name of the federal case]. And if we were to reach the opposite conclusion from the federal court – uphold the ban, not block it – the courts’ conflicting judgments would inject additional uncertainty into the debate of the validity of Kansas’ same-sex marriage ban,” the Kansas Supreme Court wrote in its order today.
The ACLU has been fighting against same-sex marriage bans in Kansas and Missouri, and other areas. In other action today, the ACLU won a case in St. Louis, Mo., on issuing same-sex marriage licenses.
“This is a positive move forward for loving same-sex couples in the city of St. Louis,” said Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri. “It is also a win for families throughout Missouri as another discriminatory obstacle is lowered.”
There are currently 32 states where same-sex couples can marry, according to the ACLU.
Documents that have been filed in the Kansas Supreme Court case are available for viewing by the public on the Kansas Judicial Branch website at www.kscourts.org, under “State vs. Moriarty” in the What’s New section.