The Topeka Capital-Journal reports two Kansas men have been denied a marriage license in their home state.
Dan Barnes, 41, and Wade Honey, 44, took an hour long drive from their town, Ogden, to the Shawnee County District Court, which is located in a more liberal area of their state.
Barnes and Honey filed for a marriage license, and it took less than five minutes for them to be turned away.
Said Nancy Escalante, supervisor for marriage licenses at the court:
You can't do that in the state of Kansas…Our application says 'man and woman.' The Legislature has not changed it.
This opens the door for a lawsuit from the two men, along with the numerous couples like them who attempted to apply for marriages.
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback release a statement that recalled the words of South Carolina's Attorney General:
I swore an oath to support the Constitution of the State of Kansas…An overwhelming majority of Kansas voters amended the Constitution to include a definition of marriage as one man and one woman. Activist judges should not overrule the people of Kansas.
Kansas falls under the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, but it is not one of the five states who are directly implicated in the recent Supreme Court decision. Governors and AGs of these states have the chance to spin their wheels and delay gay marriages. It seems likely in states like Kansas and South Carolina, we will see some legal go-arounds of this nature in the coming weeks.
