Breaking: New Mexico Same-Sex Marriages To Begin Tuesday As Judge Lifts Unconstitutional Ban

A New Mexico district court judge in Albuquerque has ruled a ban on same-sex marriage is “unconstitutional and unenforceable” and has removed it from the counties in which he has the authority to do so. Second district court judge Alan Malott ordered Bernalillo County and Santa Fe County clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples “without regard to the couples’ sexual orientation or gender.” Bernalillo County is the state’s most populous county.

“A Santa Fe couple, Jen Roper, and her partner, Angelique Neuman, filed a motion last week seeking a licence, filed in state District Court in Albuquerque,” the Albuquerque Journal reports:

Roper, 44, was diagnosed with brain cancer in December, and given 18 months to live. Roper said in her declaration in the motion that “Nothing would mean more to us and to our sons than to celebrate our love and commitment through legal marriage in our home, New Mexico.”

The couple also filed a request with Malott to allow them to join five other couples in a previously filed lawsuit challenging the state’s opposition to granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

On the same day that Roper and Neuman made their filing, Doña Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, maintaining that state marriage laws are gender neutral.

Last week, a district court judge in New Mexico also ordered the clerk of Santa Fe County to immediately begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and the county clerk of Doña Ana, New Mexico announced he was issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on a Santa Fe City Council resolution and a recent statement by the state Attorney General.

On Friday, an anti-gay New Mexico Republican state senator with a long history of supporting anti-gay people and practices  cobbled together two dozen of his colleagues to file a lawsuit to stop county clerks from issuing marriage licenses. No word yet on the status of that suit.

 

Image: Old (left) and new marriage license applications. Photo by Tina Jensen via Twitter