Love v. Beshear
| Bourke v. Beshear | |
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| Argued April 28, 2015 |
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| Full case name | Bourke v. Beshear |
| Related cases | Obergefell v. Hodges, DeBoer v. Snyder, Tanco v. Haslam. |
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| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV | |
The lead cases on same-sex marriage in Kentucky are Bourke v. Beshear, and its companion case Love v. Beshear. In Bourke, a U.S. district court found that the Equal Protection Clause requires Kentucky to recognize valid same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. In Love, the same court found that this same clause renders Kentucky's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Both decisions were stayed and consolidated upon appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard oral arguments in both cases on August 6, 2014. On November 6, the Sixth Circuit upheld Kentucky's ban on same-sex marriage.
On January 16, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court consolidated these cases with three others and agreed to review the case. Oral arguments were heard on April 28, 2015.
On July 26, 2013, Gregory Bourke and Michael DeLeon, who were legally married in Ontario, Canada, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky challenging Kentucky's refusal to recognize their marriage on behalf of themselves and DeLeon's two adopted children. They later added as plaintiffs a couple married in Iowa and another in California, and the four children of one of them. On August 16, a fourth couple, married in Connecticut, filed a related suit in the same court but then joined the suit as plaintiffs. Named as defendants were Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway, as well as Sue Carole Perry, Shelby County Clerk. Their suit, Bourke v. Beshear, argued that Kentucky should recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. The case was assigned to Judge John G. Heyburn II.
In a decision issued February 12, 2014, Judge Heyburn found that Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions because withholding recognition violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. He wrote:
[T]he Court concludes that Kentucky's denial of recognition for valid same-sex marriages violates the United States Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law, even under the most deferential standard of review. Accordingly, Kentucky's statutes and constitutional amendment that mandate this denial are unconstitutional.
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