The ACLU and eight same-sex couples have sued the state.
As The Michigan Public Radio Network’s Rick Pluta reports, they say Michigan has to recognize their marriages while a court decision is under appeal.
The lawsuit uses Governor Rick Snyder’s words about the marriages of more than 300 gay and lesbian couples performed after a federal judge struck down Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriages:
“We believe those are legal marriages and valid marriages,” he says.
But, Snyder said, the state cannot recognize the marriages because the ruling was put on hold by an appeals court. That’s not so, says ACLU attorney Jay Kaplan.
“Simply put, once these couples were legally married in Michigan, they automatically gained the protections that could not be taken away retroactively,” she says.
Kaplan says if the marriages were legal then, they’re legal now and the state has to recognize them, just as the federal government has.