Suit filed against Georgia’s ban on gay ‘marriage’

ATLANTA — Seven people filed a federal class-action lawsuit April 22 challenging Georgia’s ban on same-sex “marriage.”

The suit, by three gay couples and a woman who was unable to get recognized on the state death certificate when her same-sex spouse died, makes Georgia the last Southern state to face a challenge to its ban on gay “marriage.”

There are 65 pending lawsuits in federal courts of appeal, federal district courts and state courts challenging marriage laws in 30 states and Puerto Rico, according to Lambda Legal, the national legal group seeking full recognition of the legal rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June 2013 that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, federal judges in Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Virginia have ruled that state laws banning same-sex “marriages” were unconstitutional; those decisions are being appealed.

Georgia, where 76 percent of voters ratified a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex “marriages” in 2004, was late to the table because “there’s been an attempt to make strategic decisions about the places where we’d have the best chance of success,” Lamda Legal’s senior attorney Tara Borelli said. “But it became clear as time went on that Georgia should be on that list.”

A poll in September 2013 by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that 48 percent of Georgians favor gay “marriage” and 43 percent oppose it.