NASHVILLE – A day after Tennessee Republican lawmakers shot down a bill that purported to “nullify” the U.S. Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision, former state Sen. David Fowler filed a state lawsuit he believes ultimately can lead to the nation’s highest court’s review of its gay marriage ruling.
The legal action was filed in Williamson County Chancery Court against county clerk Elaine Anderson, who is responsible for issuing marriage licenses.
Fowler, a former Signal Mountain GOP lawmaker and attorney who now heads the Tennessee Family Action Council, said the lawsuit poses legal issues Tennessee courts need to resolve in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 26 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. The ruling invalidated Tennessee’s 1995 law limiting marriage to unions between a man and a woman.
“The bottom line is to say to the state courts of Tennessee, you have to decide what the Supreme Court of the United States really did,” Fowler told reporters at a state Capitol news conference.
He said in the high court’s 5-4 decision, the majority “purported to do two things that are mutually exclusive: rule a law invalid and then rule that everyone has a right to get married under an invalid law. That inconsistency must be pointed out, raised and resolved. And this lawsuit seeks to do that.”