ANCHORAGE — A federal judge has struck down Alaska’s first-in-the-nation ban on gay marriages.
US District Judge Timothy Burgess on Sunday said the ban violates the constitutional guarantee of due process and equal protection. The state could turn to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where chances of it winning are slim since the federal appeals court already has ruled against Idaho and Nevada, which had similar arguments.
Five gay couples had asked the state of Alaska to overturn a constitutional amendment OK’d by voters in 1998 that defined marriage as between one man and one woman.
The suit filed in May sought to bar enforcement of the ban on gay marriage. It also called for barring enforcement of state laws that refuse to recognize gay marriages legally performed in other states or countries.
In the past year, the US Supreme Court has struck down a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that prevented legally married gay couples from getting federal benefits. Federal courts also have since struck down constitutional bans in a number of states. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court declined to hear appeals in several of those cases.