WWJ-TV – The state of Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage has been struck down.
U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman made the ruling Friday afternoon in Detroit federal court after a rare two-week trial that mostly focused on the impact of same-sex parenting on children.
Friedman declared that the same-sex marriage ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. [READ RULING]
County clerks have said they’ll be ready, almost immediately, to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples should the law change but the decision came shortly after 5 p.m., when most of the county clerk offices in Michigan were closed.
“It is an honor to join couples in marriage and I look forward to the opportunity for all loving couples to marry in our great state,” Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum told WWJ Newsradio 950 on Thursday.
Michigan becomes the 18th state in the nation to allow same-sex marriage, allowing gays and lesbians to marry, identical to hetrosexual marriages. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia issue licenses for same-sex marriage.
Since December, bans on gay marriage have been overturned in Texas, Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia, but appeals have put those cases on hold.
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