ACLU Moves To Challenge Several Same-Sex Marriage Bans

The ACLU yesterday announced a broad initiative to obtain a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, in the wake of the Court's dismissal on standing grounds of the California Proposition 8 appeal. The organization said in part:

Even before today's announcement of the ACLU's federal marriage lawsuits, there were seven cases with federal marriage claims pending all around the country. Today we are adding three more cases to this mix in order to ensure that strong, well-resourced cases are presented to the federal appeals courts most likely to give the issue a fair hearing.

One of the new cases is Whitewood v. Corbett, (MD PA, filed 7/9/2013) (full text of complaint) challenging Pennsylvania's refusal to permit same-sex marriages or recognize same-sex marriages from other states. In North Carolina, the ACLU is asking North Carolina's Attorney General to allow plaintiffs to add an additional claim challenging the state's same-sex marriage ban to an already pending lawsuit challenging the state's ban on second parent adoptions. (ACLU- NC press release). Finally, the Virginia ACLU announced a planned lawsuit, to be brought with Lambda Legal, challenging constitutional and statutory bans in Virginia on same-sex marriage.