Kansas gay marriage legal - It appears that Kansas is among the number of states that will soon enough lift the ban on gay marriage, allowing same sexes to tie the knot legitimately.
According to Kansas gay marriage legal reports, the Supreme Court has once again refused to step in and review gay marriage cases in a number of states.
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to review seven gay marriage cases from five different states: Indiana, Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia and Wisconsin. Following which, gay marriage was effectively legalized in the said states, Slate has learned.
Advocates of same sex marriage now claim that if court's move will continue, six more states will be compelled to lift their gay marriage bans and allow gay people to get married.
The six states that are reportedly expected to strike down their bans on gay union are North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas, Wyoming and Colorado.
Gay marriage cases are currently pending in every single one the said states and the judges overseeing each case are believed to grant summary judgment in favor of marriage equality.
"The law is clear," Founder and President of Freed To Marry Evan Wolfson said of the move that would make Kansas gay marriage legal, alongside the five other states mentioned. "Each of these states is in a circuit where the Supreme Court let stand a freedom to marry ruling. And that is binding on those states. I think in some of those states, marriage is going to begin as soon as today. There should be no need to go to court."
Despite the strong possibility of lifting gay marriage bans in the aforesaid states, conservative officials in the involved states said early this week that will not be issuing marriage licenses to gay couples until they are forced by the law to do so, according to Huffington Post.
Director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project James Esseks called the action of the conservative officials a "watershed moment for the entire country.
Gay rights activists are now planning a way to challenge the remaining bans in the six states.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt commented on the Kansas gay marriage legal issue, saying that the state's constitutional prohibition on same-sex marriage is obviously invalid.
The state will deal with any litigation as it comes, Schmidt noted.
On the contrary, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, who is currently fighting a close re-election battle, has strongly expressed his desire to defend the ban that would make Kansas gay marriage legal.
"The people have spoken on this," Brownback said. "I don't know how much more you can bolster it than to have a vote of the people to put in the constitution that marriage is the union of a man and a woman."
Because Kansas' Constitution specifically bans same-sex marriages, an ACLU affiliate has reached out to lawyers to come up with a plan for a federal challenge that would require an immediate court order to block the ban.
The federal challenge is expected to be filed within the following week, said Legal Director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri Doug Bonney.
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