BREAKING: Ninth Circuit Court Strikes Down Marriage Bans In Nevada & Idaho

Can you STAND IT? Read the ruling.

UPDATE: Via press release from the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Today’s decision, written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, holds that “Idaho and Nevada’s marriage laws, by preventing same-sex couples from marrying and refusing to recognize same-sex marriages celebrated elsewhere, impose profound legal, financial, social and psychic harms on numerous citizens of those states.” The decision further states: “Classifying some families, and especially their children, as of lesser value should be repugnant to all those in this nation who profess to believe in ‘family values.’ In any event, Idaho and Nevada’s asserted preference for opposite-sex parents does not, under heightened scrutiny, come close to justifying unequal treatment on the basis of sexual orientation.”

The Idaho case was brought in November 2013 by four same-sex couples: Sue Latta and Traci Ehlers, Lori and Sharene Watsen, Shelia Robertson and Andrea Altmayer, and Amber Beierle and Rachael Robertson. The couples are represented by Idaho attorneys Deborah Ferguson and Craig Durham of Ferguson Durham LLP and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR). On September 8th, Ferguson argued before Ninth Circuit Judges Stephen Reinhardt, Marsha S. Berzon, and Ronald M. Gould that Idaho’s laws that ban marriage equality and prohibit the state from respecting the marriages of same-sex couples who married in other states violate the U.S. Constitution. The Idaho case was consolidated for purposes of the decision with Sevcik v. Sandoval, a case challenging Nevada’s marriage ban brought by same-sex couples represented by Lambda Legal.

UPDATE II: From Lambda Legal director Jon Davidson:

"The court remanded Lambda Legal's Nevada marriage equality case to the district court for the prompt issuance of an injunction permanently enjoining the state, its political subdivisions, and its officers, employees and agents, from preventing same-sex couples from marrying or denying recognition to marriages entered outside of the state. Same-sex couples will not be able to enforce their right to marry until that happens, but government officials in Nevada may allow same-sex couples to marry before then."