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Same-sex marriages in Arkansas rapidly recommenced on Thursday, after the confusion among county clerks on the earlier order of a state judge to forbid such unions and later on retracted his ban against gay marriages from the state law.
On Wednesday, the Arkansas Supreme Court announced that a law prohibiting clerks from consigning marriage licenses to gay couples remained valid, even if a ruling was made last week by Judge Chris Piazza from Pulaski County Circuit declaring bans on same-sex marriages unconstitutional.
The judge revised his ruling Thursday, stating that nobody in Arkansas was harmed by the 456 issued marriage licenses to gay couples after his earlier order and until the rule of the Supreme Court. Piazza also rejected the request of the state to hold the status of his decision, claiming that same-sex couples would be harmed if that happened.
Piazza wrote in his ruling that violations in the constitutions are regularly recognized as the cause of lasting harm unless they are immediately addressed. The attorney general has once again requested help from the Supreme Court of the state.
Aside from Arkansas, there are seventeen states that allow same-sex marriages in the US. The judges have already struck down same-sex marriage bans in Michigan, Idaho, Oklahoma, Utah, Texas, as well as Virginia.
Voters in Arkansas included a gay marriage ban to the constitution of the state in 2004, around the same time when the voters in Ohio nominated to define the concept of marriage between one man and one woman. Supporters of gay marriage started a petition backed with thousands of signatures and submitted it to the attorney general of Ohio to encourage him to drop an appeal from a federal court decision to remove the same-sex marriage ban.
On Friday, the legislators in Arkansas will tackle a non-binding resolution to urge justices to maintain the gay marriage ban.
