The last U.S. state with laws on the books banning same-sex ‘marriage’ will soon face a federal lawsuit, reports state.
“There will be a case filed challenging North Dakota’s same-sex marriage ban,” attorney Joshua Newville of Madia Law in Minneapolis told theWashington Post.
Newville had just filed a lawsuit against officials in South Dakota on Thursday, challenging a 1996 law enshrining marriage as being between a man and a woman, as well as a state constitutional amendment passed by 52 percent of voters in 2006.
“Only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in South Dakota,” it reads. “The uniting of two or more persons in a civil union, domestic partnership, or other quasi-marital relationship shall not be valid or recognized in South Dakota.”
A lawsuit was also filed in Montana on Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of eight homosexuals in the state. Voters in Montana had likewise approved a constitutional amendment, but the ACLU alleges that the referendum, passed in 2004 by a 67 percent majority, violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The are 30 U.S. states that have passed laws and/or amendments enshrining marriage as being between a man and a woman. Since the Supreme Court’s ruling last June striking down a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), legal groups across the nation have been rapidly filing challenges against state statutes.
North Dakota remains the only state that has been unchallenged, but Newville said that will change within the next six to eight weeks.
