An Arkansas trial judge ordered the state on June 9 to recognize and extend all rights and privileges of marriage to more than 500 same-sex couples who married during May 2014 while the state sought a stay of a trial judge’s order striking down Arkansas’s same-sex marriage ban.
On May 9, 2014, Arkansas Circuit Judge Chris Piazza ruled in Wright v. State of Arkansas, 60CV-13-2662, that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, … <Read More>
On November 25, 2014, U.S. district court judges in Arkansas and Mississippi issued rulings declaring unconstitutional the constitutional and statutory bans on same-sex marriage in those states. In Arkansas, District Judge Kristine G. Baker stayed her ruling pending an appeal to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals by the state, but the situation was complicated by another marriage equality case pending before the state’s Supreme Court, which may render this ruling superfluous depending on timing. … <Read More>
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Christopher Charles Piazza ruled on May 9 that Arkansas’s same-sex marriage ban violates the 14th Amendment of the federal constitution as well as Article 2, Section 3 of the Arkansas Constitution’s Declaration of Rights. Judge Piazza, who made no mention of a stay in his ruling, waited until after county clerk offices had closed on Friday afternoon to release his decision in the case of M. Kendall Wright v. Nathaniel Smith. … <Read More>