Four Indiana couples – from Clark and Floyd counties – have filed the first federal lawsuit against the state of Indiana and Governor Mike Pence challenging Indiana's ban on gay marriage, Louisville law firm Clay Daniel Walton & Adams announced today at a news conference, the News and Tribune reports:

Attorney Daniel Canon said during a media conference Friday that Indiana is now under leadership that says his clients do not deserve the same rights, responsibilities and privileges provided to opposite-sex couples, simple because they are in a same-sex relationships.

“All of these couples that we represent are like any other opposite-sex couples in the state of Indiana,” he said. “They live as married couples. They raise their kids together. They work and go to church in Indiana. They pay their taxes in the state of Indiana.”

Canon said that the U.S. Supreme Court, through United States vs. Windsor, ruled last year that it is unconstitutional to treat homosexual partnerships differently than heterosexual couples.

“We are asking the Indiana federal court to recognize what every other court in the country has recognized [since U.S. vs. Windsor].” Canon said. “At this point, I think, it is fairly clear that the people of Indiana can not depend on the legislature to do what is right thing to protect their civil liberties and their constitutional rights, so we have turned to the federal courts.”

Indiana's law says: “Only a female may marry a male. Only a male may marry a female. A marriage between persons of the same gender is void in Indiana even if the marriage is lawful in the place where it is solemnized.”

The lawsuit targets that statute. Indiana's Attorney General Greg Zoeller said he would defend the law.