Michigan will recognize more than 300 same-sex marriages performed during a brief window when they were allowed last year, Governor Rick Snyder announced on Wednesday.
The Republican governor said he will not appeal a federal ruling last month that the state must recognize the marriages. US district judge Mark Goldsmith said the marriages are valid but put on hold his decision for 21 days pending any appeal by the state.
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Michigan’s recognition of the marriages could affect the couples’ health insurance coverage and their ability to jointly adopt.
A different federal judge struck down Michigan’s 2004 voter-approved gay marriage ban on 21 March. Same-sex couples in four counties married the next day, before an appeals court suspended the decision and blocked additional marriages.
The US supreme court recently decided to consider the legality of bans in Michigan and three other states.
On 15 January, Goldsmith ruled that those who married “acquired a status that state officials may not ignore, absent some compelling interest”.
Further, Goldsmith said the state showed no previous court decision approving an effort to impair the marital status of a couple who were lawfully married. Rather, he wrote, “there is a long history” of court decisions and laws rejecting the view that marital status “may be invalidated by a state after it was lawfully acquired under that state’s law”.
“In these circumstances, what the state has joined together, it may not put asunder,” Goldsmith wrote.
On Tuesday, all 11 Democrats in the 38-seat Senate wrote a letter to Snyder urging him to not appeal.
“We stand united in supporting the rights of all loving couples to marry, and urge you to join us in doing the same,” they said