Equality Kansas summarizes court action

Tom Witt, Executive Director of Equality Kansas, posted the following on the organization’s website late Tuesday:

This is a follow-up to our previous breaking news that the Kansas Supreme Court has lifted its stay on marriages in Johnson County. The high points from their order:

- Johnson County may begin issuing marriage licenses to all previous applicants first thing tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

- Johnson County Chief Judge Moriarty was acting within his authority to interpret state law, the state constitution, and the various rulings and orders from the Federal courts, when deciding whether to issue licenses to same-sex couples.

- The Supreme Court implied that other chief judges around the state may make similar decisions to issue marriage licenses.

- They did not rule on whether same-sex marriage is legal in Kansas. Instead, they have deferred to the Federal courts, and as mentioned above, have left it to chief judges around the state to interpret those Federal rulings.

- Notwithstanding the above, the Court dismissed arguments from Attorney General Schmidt that the Federal court injunction was meant to apply to only Douglas and Sedgwick counties.

So what does all this mean? It means that, for now at least, we continue as we have - county by county. Here's the latest list of counties that we have confirmed are issuing marriage licenses:

Brown
Chase
Cherokee
Cloud
Cowley
Crawford
Douglas
Jewell
Johnson
Labette
Lincoln
Lyon
Mitchell
Republic
Riley
Sedgwick
Shawnee
Washington
Wyandotte

If you do NOT live in one of those counties, you may still go to any one of them and apply for a marriage license. After three days, you can go back to the originating courthouse, pick up your license, and get married ANYWHERE in Kansas. Your signed license must be filed in the courthouse that issued it.

We will still have difficulty getting state and local government agencies to recognize our marriages, whether performed in Kansas or out of state.

It is likely that litigation will continue for months, perhaps well into next year, before we fully enjoy marriage equality in Kansas. We're making great progress, however, and must keep fighting!

Here's how you can help:

- If you get a marriage license from any county NOT on our above list, let us know immediately. Your neighbors may also want to get married!

- If you are given government services based on your marriage (name change, insurance, etc), let us know where so we can pass that along as well.

- If you are *denied* services, please tell us the name of the person who denied you, their position, and the date of the denial.

- If you live in a county that is NOT granting licenses, and you are interested in being a plaintiff in our ongoing legal action against the state, get in touch!

Today is a great day, and another giant step closer to full equality under the law. Celebrate it!

The Gayly – November 18, 2014 @ 7:50pm