US: Michigan Attorney General asks Supreme Court to stop gay couples from marrying
The Attorney General of the US state of Michigan has stepped up his opposition to same-sex marriage, taking the fight to the Supreme Court.
Bill Schuette yesterday told the Supreme Court that voters, rather than judges, should be the ones to decide whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.
In a filing made by Schuette, he wrote: “This case comes down to two words; who decides.”
He called on the high court to allow a 2004 voter-approved same-sex marriage ban to stand. It previously defined marriage as specifically between one man and one woman.
“The history of our democracy demonstrates the wisdom of allowing the people to decide important issues at the ballot box, rather than ceding those decisions to unelected judges,” he continued.
US District Judge Bernard Friedman struck down Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage in March, leading clerks in several counties to immediately start performing marriages.
The ban was put back into place after 300 couples had already married – leaving them in legal limbo pending appeal – until the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban last week.
In new court filings earlier this month, the state’s Republican governor Rick Snyder said that his administration will treat the marriages as if they “never existed”.
