BOISE, Idaho — Gov. C. L. “Butch” Otter is asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for an 11-judge panel to review the three-judge ruling that overturned Idaho’s gay marriage ban last week.
Otter announced he was planning on filing a petition Tuesday evening arguing that the federal judges failed to use the correct legal standard to Idaho’s Constitutional definition of marriage.
Otter’s announcement comes nearly one week after same-sex marriage became legal for the first time in Idaho. While Otter chose not to appeal the 9th Circuit Court’s ruling that ordered the state to allow gay couples to wed, he did promise that he would fight to maintain Idaho’s 2006 constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
Otter, who is running for re-election for his third term as governor, said Tuesday that already one Idaho business has been harmed by the judges’ ruling.
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A Christian religious rights group filed a lawsuit Friday against the city of Coeur d’Alene on behalf of the for-profit Hitching Post.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian religious rights group has filed a lawsuit against the city of Coeur d’Alene on behalf of the Hitching Post, a for-profit wedding chapel.
The lawsuit alleges that Coeur d’Alene’s LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination ordinance is forcing the chapel to violate their religious beliefs by performing same-sex marriages.
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Otter says he is continuing monitoring same-sex marriage cases in other jurisdictions and the potential for them to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Idaho’s Attorney General Lawerence Wasden is not joining Otter in the petition, said spokesman Todd Dvorak. However, Wasden’s office is planning on asking the Supreme Court at the “appropriate time” to review the lower court’s documents and decision – known as a writ of certiorari – regarding Idaho’s same-sex marriage case, Dvorak said.
