Michigan Won't Challenge Legality of 300 Same-Sex Marriages

Gov. Rick Snyder said Wednesday the state will recognize the marriages performed last spring during the brief 24-hours that gay marriage was legal in the state. (Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images/AFP)

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Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Wednesday that he won’t oppose a federal judge’s ruling last month requiring the state to recognize he marriages of about 300 same-sex couples who wed during the brief, 24-hour period that marriage was legal in the state last spring.

“The judge has determined that same-sex couples were legally married on that day, and we will follow the law and extend state marriage benefits to those couples,” Snyder said in a statement, the Detroit Free Press reports.

In January, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith called the marriages “fundamental right.” “In these circumstances, what the state has joined together, it may not put asunder…,” Goldsmith wrote in the opinion validating the marriages.

He put a 21-day stay on the Jan. 15 ruling, pending an appeal.

Wednesday’s announcement could clear up some of the ambiguity regarding tax filings, adoptions, health coverage and other issues faced by same-sex couples. The federal government began recognizing the marriages shortly after U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman’s ruling last March that the state’s voter-backed ban violated due process and equal protection clauses in the 14th Amendment.

Whether states have the right to impose such bans is one of two gay marriage questions the U.S. Supreme Court said in January when it agreed to take up the DeBoers v. Snyder, the Michigan case, and cases in three other states where bans were upheld by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court is expected to decideswhether same-sex couples will be allowed to marry in all 50 states, likely resolving the legal issues over the most contentious civil rights issue of recent times.

Arguments are expected in April, with a ruling by June.

Snyder said in the statement that he is mindful the Supreme Court will take up the larger issue of gay marriage and whether states can ban or fail to recognize them.

“I appreciate that the larger question will be addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court this year,” Snyder said. “This is an issue that has been divisive across our country. ... I know there are strong feelings on both sides of this issue, and it’s vitally important for an expedient resolution that will allow people in Michigan, as well as other states, to move forward together on the other challenges we face.”

More about this on Patch:

• U.S. Supreme Court Will Finally Decide Gay Marriage in 50 States
• Judge Rules Michigan Must Recognize 300 Same-Sex Marriages
• 6th Circuit Could Be Pivotal in Gay Marriage Debate
• 6th Circuit’s Marathon Gay Marriage Hearing Signals Historic Shift
• Federal Judge Strikes Down Michigan’s Gay Marriage Ban
• 6th Circuit Stays Historic Gay Marriage Ruling
• Governor: Gay Marriages Legal, But State Won’t Recognize Them
• Supreme Court Clears Way For Gay Marriage In Virginia, 4 Other States
• Will Supreme Court Justices Hear Michigan Gay Marriage Case?

A Republican, Snyder had been lobbied by the 11 Democrats in the 38-member Michigan State Senate not to oppose Goldsmith’s ruling. “We stand united in supporting the rights of all loving couples to marry, and urge you to join us in doing the same,” the Democrats said in a letter to Snyder.

“The rights of these 300 couples are just as valid as the rights of every other Michigander, and they – and every Michigan resident – deserve to have the same rights and responsibilities as other married couples,” they wrote

“They were duly married under the law, and it is only right that the state recognize their marriages as legal. We urge you to be the champion for these rights by doing the right thing and acknowledging their union.”

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