Matt Hamby, left, and Chris Shelden, one of the five plaintiff couples in the lawsuit that has successfully challenged Alaska’s ban on same-sex marriage
U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess has overturned Alaska’s ban on legal recognition of same-sex marriage. Burgess’ order, issued today (Sunday, Oct. 12) in the case Hamby v. Parnell, would allow same-sex couples to begin marrying for the first time in Alaska.
Burgess’ ruling comes less than a week after the Ninth Circuit Court upheld lower court rulings striking down same-sex marriage bans in Nevada and Idaho. Nevada state officials have chosen not to appeal the circuit court ruling, allowing couples to begin marrying there immediately. But U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy issued a stay of the ruling, affecting Idaho only, after Idaho state officials asked for the stay.
The Ninth Circuit Court’s jurisdiction encompasses Alaska, as well.
Burgess said that Alaska law banning same-sex marriages there and refusing to recognize same-sex marriages from jurisdictions that do recognize them is “unconstitutional as a deprivation of basic due process and equal protection principles under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” according to a report in the Alaska Dispatch News.
Read Burgess’ ruling in its entirety here.