KANSAS CITY, MO — Eight Missouri couples from across the state have filed suit challenging the constitutionality of Missouri’s laws denying legal recognition of their marriages. The eight couples, some together for more than 30 years, and several raising children, are excluded from most state and some federal protections available to opposite-sex married couples.
“Because of the many benefits of marriage, Missouri has traditionally recognized lawful marriages performed in other states,” said Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri. “We know that the people of Missouri are fair-minded and did not intend to harm these eight families and others like them throughout Missouri. But our current laws do harm them.”
The plaintiff couples are:
* Janice Barrier and Sherie Schild - married in 2009, and have been a couple for more than 30 years;
* Lisa Layton-Brinker and JoDe Layton-Brinker - married in 2010, together for six years, their family includes three children, ages 17, 20, and 21;
* Zuleyma Tang-Martinez and Arlene Zarembka - recently celebrated their 31st anniversary as a couple, and were married in 2005;
* James MacDonald and Andrew Schuerman - together for 12 years, married in 2005, and raising their two-year-old daughter;
* Elizabeth Drouant and Julikka LaChe - married in 2010, and together for 10 years;
* Ashley Quinn and Katherine Quinn - together for eight years and married in 2010;
* Adria Webb and Patricia Webb - married in 2010 and raising two children, aged 12 and 13; and
* Alan Ziegler and LeRoy Fitzwater - have been a couple since 2001, and were married in 2008.
“Our courts and our society have discarded, one by one, marriage laws that violated the Constitution’s mandate of equality, such as anti-miscegenation laws and laws that denied married women legal independence and the right to make decisions for
themselves,” said Tony Rothert, Legal Director of the ACLU of Missouri. “History has taught us that the vitality of marriage does not depend on maintaining such discriminatory laws. To the contrary, eliminating these unconstitutional restraints on the freedom to marry has enhanced the institution.”
Rothert outlined some of the many protections denied these loving couples and their families, including:
* The reflection of their marital status on their spouse’s death certificate;
* The right to private visits or a shared room in a nursing home;
* Consenting to needed experimental medical treatment for an incapacitated spouse; and
* Being protected if a first-responder is killed in the line of duty.
The ACLU was joined at press conferences announcing the litigation in Kansas City, Jefferson City, St. Louis and Springfield, by representatives of PROMO, Missouri’s statewide LGBT organization. A.J. Bockelman, executive director of PROMO stated: “As we approach a full decade since the passage of Missouri's Constitutional Amendment on marriage, we know this has been a decade of hardship on gay and lesbian couples. The tide has turned and we now see state after state taking a supportive position and extending the basic benefits of marriage to our couples. It is past time for Missouri to be on the right side of history and declare Missouri's Amendment unconstitutional."
Attorneys for the plaintiffs are Rothert and Grant Doty, of the ACLU of Missouri Foundation; and Josh Block, with the national ACLU.
