David Fowler, with the Constitutional Government Defense Fund, takes notes during a hearing before Judge Mike Pemberton in the courtroom at the Cleveland Municipal Building on Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017, in Cleveland, Tenn. Fowler, on behalf of Bradley County Commissioner Howard Thompson and Kinser Church of God Pastor Guinn Green, filed a lawsuit to prevent Bradley County from issuing marriage licenses in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing same-sex marriage. CLEVELAND, Tenn. – A lawsuit that claims the U.S. Supreme Court’s recognition of same-sex marriage invalidated Tennessee’s marriage license law might go to trial in February, if a judge doesn’t throw it out of court first.
Attorney and Christian activist David Fowler says the high court’s June 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges essentially nullified the state law that says marriage licenses only can be issued to a man and woman.
The Tennessee General Assembly specifically added the “man and woman” language in 1995, and state voters adopted a constitutional amendment the next year with the same language, he said.
But Obergefell holds that state laws are “invalid to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.”
Since the Tennessee General Assembly hasn’t amended the state marriage statute to comply, Fowler contends, the law is invalid and there’s no way to get a legal marriage license in the state. That could include all the marriages performed in Tennessee since the ruling.