LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A lawsuit challenging Arkansas’ ban on gay marriage is moving closer to a trial.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza on Thursday rejected a motion by government lawyers to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to topple the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, reported the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The judge also refused the plaintiffs’ motion seeking to bar the state from continuing to apply the prohibition to the nine same-sex couples who are part of the 43-member plaintiffs’ group. Piazza’s brief ruling did not state a reason.
The plaintiffs — 21 same-sex couples and a woman who wants to dissolve her New York marriage to another woman — argue that a constitutional amendment that Arkansas voters passed in 2004 and related statutes violate both state and federal constitutions. They say the laws violate equal-protection guarantees and are deliberately demeaning and degrading to them and their children.
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The lawsuit targets the Arkansas Department of Health, which manages the state’s marriage records, and the Department of Finance and Administration, which oversees income-tax collection, along with the county clerks in seven counties — Conway, Faulkner, Lonoke, Pulaski, Saline, Washington and White — where plaintiffs have been refused marriage licenses.
A trial hasn’t been scheduled yet.
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But the case likely won’t end there. The judge has said he expects an appeal, meaning the marriage-ban question will ultimately be decided by the Arkansas Supreme Court.
A spokesman for Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, whose office is representing the state, commended the judge for moving quickly, acting within a week to the day after a three-hour hearing on the dismissal and injunction questions.
“We appreciate the court ruling in such a timely fashion,” spokesman Aaron Sadler said.
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