WA State Attorney General Joins Others in Same-Sex Marriage Cases

In what they are calling an effort to protect same-sex marriage civil rights,  Attorney Generals from 14 states have joined to lobby the Supreme Court to hear three marriage equality cases. Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson is one of them.

According to a release Thursday from Ferguson's office:

“Same-sex couples in too many states remain unable to marry,” said Ferguson. “It is time for the Supreme Court to weigh in on this critical civil rights issue and rule once and for all that state bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional.”

Ferguson joined the Attorneys General of Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Vermont today in filing a “friend of the court” brief asking the Supreme Court to agree to hear marriage equality cases from the Fourth and Tenth U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal.

In each case, the federal circuit court struck down a state ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional.  The Attorneys General are asking the Supreme Court to affirm these rulings and grant equal access to marriage nationwide.

The Supreme Court will decide whether to hear, or take on, the Fourth and Tenth Circuit marriage cases mentioned above sometime this fall, according to Ferguson.