St. Louis, Missouri tests state gay marriage ban
Missouri was the first state in the country to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage 10 years ago, and it’s now the latest to see its ban come under fire amid rapidly changing public opinion.
The challenge came as officials in St. Louis, the state’s most prominent city, issued marriage licenses to four same-sex couples Wednesday evening, just hours after federal judges struck down similar same-sex marriage bans in Utah and Indiana as unconstitutional.
St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said city officials knew going in that defying the marriage ban would probably trigger a court showdown, and he welcomes that.
“I felt that if we didn’t do these things, and we didn’t do this here in St. Louis, it wouldn’t be done anywhere else in the state of Missouri,” Slay said in an interview.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster wasted no time challenging the marriages, requesting a restraining order Thursday morning to block the city from issuing any additional licenses.
“Regardless of my personal support for marriage equality, such vital questions cannot be decided by local county officials acting in contravention of state law,” wrote Koster, a Democrat who many to expect to run for governor in 2016.
A circuit court judge denied the order Thursday in light of the city’s agreement to stop issuing licenses for the time being. He did not rule out granting an injunction in the future.
When Missouri passed its ban in 2004, it had the support of 71 percent of voters. The measure bars the state from validating or recognizing same-sex marriages.
But as national opinion has shifted and similar bans across the country have been struck down in recent years, The Show Me State has seen its own electorate evolve on the issue, albeit at a slower pace than much of the country.
Thirty-six percent of Missourians responding to a June 2012 poll said they supported legalizing gay marriage, a 4 percentage point increase from just a year before. By comparison, a Washington Post/ABC News poll taken this spring found that 59 percent of all Americans support legalization.
“There clearly has been a huge shift in terms of attitudes, nationally, internationally, and certainly in the state of Missouri,” said Slay, who is in his fourth term as mayor.
He added that St. Louis’ decision to issue the licenses was based on the belief, backed by legal counsel, that the ban is no longer constitutional given the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last June to grant gay couples federal legal standing.
Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, has said he would prefer to see the debate play out in another vote, in which case he would advocate for repeal. Nixon was Missouri attorney general when the ban was put into place.
In the meantime, he announced an executive order last November allowing same-sex couples married elsewhere to file joint state income tax returns. While that order is being challenged by conservative groups in court, the American Civil Liberties Union is trying to go a step further to gain complete recognition of out-of-state marriages.
A.J. Bockelman, who heads the statewide LGBT advocacy group PROMO, said the recent developments suggest it’s more effective for the pro-same-sex marriage community to turn to the courts to advance their cause.
“I think that, by and large, we are at a point where ballot initiatives aren’t really seen as viable any more, in part because you have seen so many court cases go in this direction,” Bockelman said.
To date, 19 states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage.
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