Federal judge overturns Montana same-sex marriage ban
A federal judge ordered Montana officials to immediately cease enforcing the state’s ban on same-sex marriage in a ruling handed down Wednesday that found the law unconstitutional.
U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris declared Montana law prohibiting same-sex marriage violates same-sex couples’ “rights to equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Morris did not stay his decision and ordered the state and its officers, employees, agents and political subdivisions to stop enforcing Montana law banning same-sex marriage immediately.
“Montana’s laws that ban same-sex marriage impose a ‘disfavored legal status’ on same-sex couples,” Morris wrote. “The time has come for Montana to follow all the other states within the Ninth Circuit and recognize that laws that ban same-sex marriage violate the constitutional right of same-sex couples to equal protection of the laws. Today Montana becomes the thirty-fourth state to permit same-sex marriage.”
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