Breaking the Marriage Bans

More courts void state same-sex restrictions

Does last year's landmark Supreme Court judgment in favor of same-sex-marriage rights apply to the states? Lower-court judges say yes--even in some unlikely places. From Utah to Oklahoma, Kentucky to New Mexico, federal courts are ruling that state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples now violate the Constitution.

The most recent in this line of decisions came in tradition-drenched Virginia. U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen struck down the Old Dominion's ban on Feb. 13, declaring that laws against same-sex marriage must fall today for the same reason that laws against interracial marriage were overturned nearly 50 years ago. Consenting adults,...

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