Suit Challenging Ga. Gay Marriage Ban to be Filed

A gay rights group on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit in Atlanta challenging the state of Georgia's constitutional ban on same-sex marriages.

Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven people and seeks class action status. They are suing the state registrar, a clerk of the Gwinnett County Probate Clerk and a Fulton County Probate Court judge in their official capacities.

"The history of the United States has been defined by the ability of each succeeding generation to recognize that social, economic, political, religious, and historical norms do not define our unalienable rights," the lawsuit says. "(I)n time, the American ideal of equality and liberty demanded that our government move past cultural and majority oppressions, however long-standing, in order to secure and fulfill the individual rights of all citizens."

Georgia voters in 2004 overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage in 2004. The ban was challenged in courts by gay rights groups who challenged the wording of the ballot question, but the state Supreme Court ultimately ruled the vote was valid in 2006.

The state constitution prohibits same-sex marriage and says that Georgia will recognize only the union of a man and a woman as marriage and that same-sex marriages performed in others states are not legally recognized.

Shelton Stroman and Chris Inniss, a suburban Atlanta couple, are among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Tuesday. They've been together for about 13 years, own a pet boarding and daycare business together and adopted their 9-year-old son, Jonathan, as an infant.

"We just want to make sure that other families like ours are treated just like everyone else's family," Stroman told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "It's really hurtful and offensive that the state of Georgia is refusing to treat our families fairly."

Gay marriage is legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia, and Stroman and Inniss have considered going to one of those spots to get married. But they said they're frustrated that their union would have no legal standing in Georgia, and they still wouldn't have the state legal benefits of marriage.

The Supreme Court last year found that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which forbade the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage, improperly deprived gay couples of due process. That ruling came as polls showed that a majority of Americans now support gay marriage. Lower-court judges have repeatedly cited the Supreme Court decision when striking down same-sex marriage bans. They have ruled against bans in Michigan, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Texas, and ordered Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.