Attorney General Bill Schuette filed a temporary stay to prevent the ruling from going into effect while a higher court considers his appeal. The stay was granted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Saturday afternoon and will be in effect until Wednesday.
Same-sex couples flocked to the Ingham County Courthouse in Mason Saturday morning to receive their marriage licenses.
On Saturday, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum issued dozens of marriage licenses between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. Clerks in Washtenaw, Muskegon and Oakland counties also issued licenses for gay couples — more than 300 marriage licenses were issued, and more than 100 weddings were performed statewide.
Sara Wurfel, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Snyder, told the Associated Press Sunday that Michigan state agencies will not recognize the marriages performed Saturday until the matter is settled in court.
The status of same-sex couples who got married Saturday in Michigan likely will eventually be legally recognized, even if a higher court upholds the gay marriage ban in the state, MSU law professor Mae Kuykendall said.
“The idea (of a stay) will be to maintain the status quo ,” Kuykendall said. “The general strong tendencies would be to say that people who married under an existing framework cannot have their marriages voided .”
According to Kuykendall, people who married on Saturday were in compliance with the framework provided by Judge Friedman.
In his 31-page ruling , Friedman stated religious arguments should not have an impact on the rights of gay couples to marry.
“Many Michigan residents have religious convictions whose principles govern the conduct of their daily lives and inform their ow n viewpoints about marriage ,” the ruling stated. “Nonetheless, these views cannot strip other citizens of the guarantees of equal protection under the law.”
To East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett , the ruling was long overdue. He performed five wedding ceremonies in Mason on Saturday.
“I was very glad that some East Lansing couples were able to take the window of opportunity to get married,” Triplett said. “The Att orney General and Governor Snyder are spiraling a losing battle to deny the couples to get married.”
Friedman’s ruling is a big step towards equality, said biomedical laboratory diagnostics freshman Katrine Weismantle , who is the vice president of Spectrum, East Neighborhood Queer and Allied Caucus.
“I’m happy that this (occurred), and we are hoping ... that we don’t have to go back and keep fighting for something we’ve been fighting for so long,” Weismantle said.
Friedman’s decision eliminating the ban on same sex marriage was the end of a long trial that challenged the constitutional prohibition.
The plaintiffs in the case, Hazel Park, Mich., residents Jayne Rowse and April DeBoer , initially filed a lawsuit to garner their rights to adopt one another’s children.
During the trial, Stanford University sociologist Mark Rosenfeld inferred that raising children in a same-sex household would not interfere with their childhood.
Because of the decisions that other courts have made about gay marriage, Kuykendall thinks that the court’s last decision will end up favoring the same sex couples.
“It will be a very controversial decision and unusual to turn back over the individual rights,” Kuykendall said.
