The
Pennsylvania Department of Public Health today filed a state lawsuit to
prevent Montgomery County and its clerk, D. Bruce Hanes, from issuing
marriage licences to same-sex couples,
the AP reports. Hanes first started granting marriage liscenses to same-sex couples last week, compelled he said by the ruling in
United States v. Windsor
and a desire to be "on the right side of history." While Pennsylvania
does not ban same-sex marriage in its constitution as many other states
do, the state did pass a law in 1996 that defines marriage as being
between a man and a woman and goes even further in not recognizing
same-sex unions codified out of state. It is this law that Hanes, an
independently elected Democrat, is accused of "repeatedly and
continuously" flouting in the suit filed by the state. Meanwhile,
Montgomery County solicitor Ray McGarry has insisted that the county
will continue to issue marriage licenses to gay couples and believes the
state's lawsuit "has serious flaws." That lawsuit seems to be
particularly concerned with illegal requests for benefits and the
alleged "administrative and legal chaos that is likely
to flow from the clerk's unlawful practice of issuing marriage licenses
to those who are not permitted under Pennsylvania law to marry."
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