KANSAS: "Gays Want To Steal Our Marriage" Nutcases Shot Down By Court

Remember the crackpot Kansas couple that says evil gays are attempting to literally steal their marriage?  A federal court has told them to suck it.

A federal judge has rejected an attempt by a heterosexual couple to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the state’s gay marriage ban.The ruling reads that Phillip and Sandra Unruh, of Harper, have no legal right to join the ACLU’s lawsuit. The Unruhs had claimed they have a property right as a married heterosexual couple.They argued overturning the same-sex marriage ban could diminish their marital status.The judge concluded their interests are already represented by the Kansas attorney general’s office, which is defending the ban. They were invited to file a friend-of-the-court brief.

(Tipped by JMG reader Christopher)

UPDATE: From the ruling.

The Unruhs have identified no federal statute giving them an unconditional right to intervene in this case and the Court has identified no such statute. In addition, the Unruhs have failed to satisfy the four factors established by Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(a)(2). Specifically, the Court doubts whether plaintiffs can show that their marriage constitutes a protectable property interest under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution or that this case’s disposition will impair their ability to protect that interest. See Kitchen v. Herbert , 755 F.3d 1193, 1223 (10th Cir. 2014) (rejecting Utah’s argument that “state recognition of love and commitment between same-sex couples will alter the most intimate and personal decisions of opposite-sex couples”). But the Court need not decide those questions, because the Court concludes that existing defendants adequately represent the Unruhs’ interests and denies their request for intervention of right on this basis.