Beginning today, Colorado’s 64 county clerks are legally required to issue licenses to same-sex couples who request them. [Update: Slower movement in the other five states indirectly impacted by Monday’s Supreme Court action: Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming.]
AFP / Getty Images MARK LEFFINGWELL
WASHINGTON — Colorado now has marriage equality, Attorney General John Suthers has advised county clerks.
The state is the first to allow same-sex couples to marry outside of the five states directly affected by Monday's Supreme Court action denying requests to hear appeals of several marriage cases.
Several state and federal marriage challenges had been pending in Colorado, which is within the same federal appeals circuit as Utah and Oklahoma — two of the states directly affected by Monday's Supreme Court denials.
Because the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling striking down Utah and Oklahoma's bans is now the law of the circuit, Suthers announced on Monday that he would seek to withdraw his appeals of lower court rulings pending in the Colorado challenges.
"Beginning today, Colorado's 64 county clerks are legally required to issue licenses to same-sex couples who request them. In addition, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is required to register such marriages in the records of the State of Colorado," he announced on Tuesday, after the Colorado Supreme Court dismissed two marriage case appeals and ended its stays on the lower court rulings.
Read the full statement:
Via coloradoattorneygeneral.gov