A three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit just struck down same-sex marriage bans in Nevada and Idaho, adding two more states to the rapidly growing list.
Just one day after the Supreme Court’s decision to let stand appellate court rulings that declared same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals moments ago ruled that bans in Idaho and Nevada are also unconstitutional.
This latest development brings the number of states that have extended or will extend marriage to same-sex couples to 35.
The judges’ ruling was unanimous.
“We hold that the Idaho and Nevada laws at issue violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because they deny lesbians and gays who wish to marry persons of the same sex a right they afford to individuals who wish to marry persons of the opposite sex,” Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in his ruling.Â
“Today’s decision from the Ninth Circuit brings to 35 the number of freedom to marry states, and 64% of the American people now live in a state where gay people will soon share in the freedom to marry,” Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said in a statement. “We now have more states that have ended the exclusion of gay couples from marriage than had ended bans on interracial marriage when the Supreme Court brought the country to national resolution in Loving v. Virginia. We hope that the other federal appellate courts will move swiftly to end the disparity and unfair denial that too many loving and committed couples in the 15 remaining states endure.”
Freedom to Marry added, “In total, 42 federal and state courts in the past year have ruled in favor of the freedom to marry for same-sex couples with only one federal and one state ruling going the other way. Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied review of five of these marriage wins, paving the way for the freedom to marry in an additional 11 states.”
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Image by Marc Love via Flickr
Hat tip:Â Chris Geidner at BuzzfeedÂ