Judge overturns Mississippi same-sex marriage ban

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves on Tuesday handed same-sex couples a victory in their quest to overturn Mississippi's gay marriage ban.

Reeves granted a preliminary injunction blocking the state's ban against same-sex unions as sought by the Campaign for Southern Equality and two lesbian couples who had sued in the state in federal court. But the judge also postponed the injunction from going into effect for 14 days in a legal maneuver called a "stay."

This means same-sex couples cannot yet obtain marriages licenses in Mississippi.

In his 72-page order, Reeves said "Mississippi continues to change in ways its people could not anticipate even 10 years ago. Allowing same-sex couples to marry, however, presents no harm to anyone. At the very least, it has the potential to support families and provide stability for children."

Reeves' decision came the same day as that of a federal judge in Arkansas who ruled against that state's constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Their rulings join a string of others recently striking down gay-marriage bans in states across the nation.

Joce Pritchett, who along with her spouse Carla Webb, sued Mississippi, reacted with joy at Reeves' decision.

"We've been dancing around the living room with the kids, with their little thumbs up," said Pritchett of Jackson. "Our daughter Grace yelled, 'Yay, no more bad laws.' I didn't try to explain to her the stay and the appeal, but we just told her we won."

The stay gives Mississippi time to appeal Reeves' ruling at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a move that state Attorney General Jim Hood said late Tuesday he is prepared to take.

Citing his duty to uphold the constitutionality of the state's laws, Hood said he will ask the 5th Circuit to stay Reeves' decision until it can decide the two cases already before it.

The appeals court is set to hear oral arguments the week of Jan. 5 on two other pending gay marriage cases – that of Louisiana and Texas. Whatever the 5th Circuit decides in these cases also will apply to Mississippi.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court could agree to a hear one of several other gay marriage cases elsewhere country, with its decision ultimately superseding those made in the federal or circuit courts.

Roberta Kaplan, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said she's ready to continue the fight.

"We will win this one in the 5th Circuit, too," she said by phone from New York where she practices law.

Best known for her work litigating United States v. Windsor, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act, Kaplan argued against the state's gay marriage ban in Reeves' courtroom on Nov. 12.

"We're thrilled that Judge Reeves understood and appreciated and took such great care and time to explain why gay people have the same rights under the constitution as everyone else," she said. "I think this opinion is going to stand as truly as a landmark opinion in this area."

The Campaign for Southern Equality filed the lawsuit on Oct. 20 on behalf of Mississippi Pritchett and Webb, who are seeking state recognition for their existing legal marriage performed in Maine; and Rebecca Bickett and Andrea Sanders, who are challenging the state's outright ban on gay marriage.

Defendants in the suit are Hood, Gov. Phil Bryant, Hood and Hinds County Circuit Clerk Barbara Dunn.

Bryant's spokesman, Knox Graham, said late Tuesday that the governor has every confidence that Hood will continue to defend the state constitution.

Both sides had argued before Reeves during a roughly five-hour hearing earlier this month in the federal courthouse in Jackson. Plaintiffs called Mississippi's ban on gay marriage baseless and discriminatory.

The state's lead attorney, Justin Matheny, defended Mississippi's ban as necessary to promote what he called "responsible procreation" among married couples who are able to bear children.

Social media and legal experts nationwide reacted to the news just minutes after the announcement. Some, including Evan Wolfson, president of pro-LGBT organization Freedom to Marry, praised Reeve's decision.

Others, like Forest Thigpen, president of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, derided the decision as tyranny against the will of state voters who in 2004 overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

"We have reached this point where the voice of the people and their elected representatives doesn't matter," Thigpen said in a statement.

Jennifer Riley-Collins, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, called it "a beautiful day for all the loving and committed same-sex couples who have long waited to get married, or for their marriages to be recognized in Mississippi … ."

But more work remains to end discrimination against gay people in the Magnolia State, said Human Rights Campaign Mississippi director Rob Hill.

"For thousands of LGBT Mississippians, the reality remains that we risk being fired from over jobs, kicked out of our homes or refused service simply because of who we are and who we love—that's not right," he said.

An estimated 3,484 same-sex couples live in the state, according to the most recent decennial census.

Pritchett said the decision gives those couples and their supporters hope, not just in Mississippi, but nationwide.

"We knew when we started this that a whole nation would be watching us," she said. "They're going to say if it can happen in Mississippi, it can happen here, and they're going to have hope, too."