LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A county clerk said Thursday that a federal lawsuit challenging Arkansas’ 2004 ban on same-sex marriages should be dismissed and the issue should be considered in state court.
Pulaski County Clerk Larry Crane said in court papers that a lawsuit filed by three gay couples in July mimics one filed by 11 couples in state court. He said a state court should have the chance to address the issue before a federal court gets involved.
“A decision (in the separate state case) striking down the state strictures against same-sex marriage will fully resolve the claims of all plaintiffs,” Crane wrote. “A decision … adverse to those plaintiffs is appealable to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Arkansas voters in 2004 approved a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It passed by a 3-to-1 margin.
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Without the dismissal of the federal lawsuit, Crane would be forced to fight the same battle on two different fronts.
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“(Crane) believes that the people of Arkansas should have their answer from their state courts, not because it will be a better or more palatable decision but because it will have arrived from officials for whom the electorate is fully responsible,” a lawyer for the clerk wrote.
The three couples sued Crane, whose office issues marriages licenses in Arkansas’ most-populous county, plus the governor and attorney general, who have yet to formally respond to the complaint.
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