I've been on the road this past week, so here is a newly updated marriage map with a number of changes:
a. There are now only three states without a lawsuit seeking same-sex civil marriage: Montana, North Dakota, and Alaska.
b. Georgia finally came on board the marriage lawsuit train as has South Dakota.
c. The 6th Circuit Court issued a stay on a Tennessee judge's order for the Volunteer State to recognize three same-sex couples as legally married while their lawsuit progresses.
d. One of the handful of out gay Federal judges heard a lawsuit seeking to overturn that state's anti-marriage constitutional amendment and legalize civil marriages there. The state's attorney general also feels the amendment is unconstitutional and so there is no one defending the law before the court.
e. Alaska's Supreme Court also ruled this week that the state's refusal to give the same tax exemptions to same-sex couples as it gives to opposite-sex couples was discriminatory and unconstitutional.
f. And finally an Idaho cemetery for veterans refused the request of an elderly lesbian veteran to be buried with the ashes of her late partner under the claim that Idaho's state constitution prohibited recognition of the couple as married. This woman who lived her life serving our country responded that she has spent her life being discriminated against and guess that this would not end with her death. Sad.
