A small group of seven New Mexico Republican state legislators have just filed a lawsuit to stop same-sex couples from being issued marriage licenses. Currently, six out of 33 New Mexico counties are issuing licenses to same-sex couples, while another, Los Alamos County, may soon be following. Most have been ordered by state judges to issue licenses regardless of gender.
Two weeks ago, one Doña Ana county clerk, Lynn Ellins, was the first to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on a Santa Fe City Council resolution and a recent statement by the state Attorney General. The Republican lawmakers have targeted Doña Ana county in their lawsuit, as the county clerk’s lone action is the most vulnerable. The small group of Republicans are hoping a ruling in their favor will be extended to the remainder of the state.
While the names of the lawmakers have been kept hidden from all news reports, The New Civil Rights Movement is reporting exclusively that the lawsuit was filed by only seven state lawmakers, all Republican: Senators William Sharer and Steven Neville, and Representatives David Gallegos, Jimmie Hall, Yvette Herrell, Dennis Roch, and James Strickler.
Senator Sharer has been threatening to file the lawsuit for two weeks now, and had claimed to have a coalition of 30 legislators ready to sign their names to the lawsuit. That it took two weeks and that he could only come up with six others is a strong indication that there is little support for his anti-gay escapades.
The New Mexico state legislature has a total of 112 seats between the House and the Senate. Of those 112 seats, there are 15 Republicans in the Senate, and 32 Republicans in the House. Sen. Sharer managed to get only seven out of 47, or just under 15 percent of his Republican colleagues to join his lawsuit.
Senator Sharer, for years has been trying, unsuccessfully, to amend the New Mexico state constitution to read:
“Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.”
Sharer’s most recent views were first reported exclusively by The New Civil Rights Movement on Friday, August 23, after a blog post he wrote earlier that same day accused gay men of “whoring.” Sharer posed as a reason to deny loving same-sex couples the right to marriage two gay Greeks from the annals of history: Aristotle and Alexander the Great.
LOOK:Â Why New Mexico Is On The Verge Of Becoming The Next Marriage Equality State
“Alexander may have engaged in homosexual activity, but he married a woman,” Sharer wrote on his campaign blog last Friday:
He directed his officers to stop “whoring†around and find a local woman to marry.
Aristotle fully believed that marriage, between Greeks, was fundamental for civilization – marriage between a Greek man and a Greek woman to make virtuous Greek babies. It was only with virtuous Greek babies that Greek civilization could succeed.
Today’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of the seven lawmakers by Paul Becht, in Las Cruces, according to Barry Massey at the AP, in an article that does not mention that only seven lawmakers have signed onto the suit, nor does it mention their names.
Currently, hundreds of New Mexico same-sex couples have been married, and legal experts state their marriages, regardless of court rulings, are legal and cannot be nullified.
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Image: Monica Leaming and Cecilia Taulbee, represented by the ACLU, receive their marriage license from the Bernalillo County Clerk’s Office. Photo via Facebook
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