By Jim Salter
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking to force Missouri to recognize same-sex marriages performed in places that allow them, saying the state’s refusal to do so “undermines the couples’ ability to achieve their life goals and dreams.”
The ACLU filed the lawsuit in a Kansas City state court on behalf of eight same-sex couples who live in Missouri and were married elsewhere. The litigation was announced at news conferences in Kansas City, St. Louis, Jefferson City and Springfield.
Among those who want the state to recognize their marriage are Janice Barrier and Sherie Schild, who have been together for 33 years and who got hitched in Iowa in 2009.
Both Barrier, 61, and Schild, 60, have battled cancer in recent years, and they worry about what the future holds if the state refuses to recognize their marriage.
“We’re really concerned that if one of us would end up in a nursing home we might not have the same rights to care for each other in privacy that different-sex married couples enjoy in Missouri,” Barrier said.
“It’s so very important to us,” she said, “that we’re not torn apart at the very end of our lives.”
After a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling permitted gay marriage in that state, Missouri in 2004 became the first state to enact a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage.
The measure was approved by 70 percent of Missouri voters.
Gay marriage opponents contend that marriage should be restricted to being between a man and woman, and say they hope judges will allow states to choose their own path.
Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature has shown no interest in changing the state’s policy of not recognizing same-sex marriages performed in one of the 17 states or in countries that allow them.
The ACLU says the policy is unfair.
“The refusal to recognize plaintiffs’ marriages undermines the couples’ ability to achieve their life goals and dreams, threatens their mutual economic stability, and denies them a dignity and status of immense import,” the lawsuit argues.
Throughout the country, courts and the federal government have increasingly been moving toward allowing and recognizing same-sex marriage.
On Tuesday, Nevada’s attorney general and governor said the state will stop defending its constitutional ban on same-sex marriages, a case that was pending before a federal appeals court.
Federal courts in Utah and Oklahoma recently struck down gay marriage bans.
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