Indiana will not recognize same sex marriages performed between a federal judge’s ruling striking down the state’s gay marriage ban and an appeals court order halting that decision.
Federal judge Richard Young ruled Indiana’s ban on same sex marriage unconstitutional in an order handed down late last month. Two days later, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of that ruling, halting its effects.
But in between, hundreds of same sex marriages were licensed throughout the state. In an advisory memo sent out this week, Governor Mike Pence’s general counsel, Mark Ahern, says executive branch agencies should comply with the 7th Circuit’s stay and act as though Judge Young’s order was never issued.
In a statement, state Democratic Party chair John Zody blasted the decision, saying Pence is embarrassing the state by ignoring those who don’t fall under what Zody calls the governor’s “narrow notion of a Hoosier family.”
In Ahern’s memo, he notes that the state will recognize the marriage of one same sex couple – Niki Quasney and Amy Sandler – as ordered by the federal appeals court.
Quasney and Sandler, who were married in Massachusetts last year, sought emergency recognition because Quasney is terminally ill with ovarian cancer.
