a state which not only bans same sex marriage but also recognition of same sex marriages legally performed in other states.
As you can read in this BuzzFeed story,
A federal judge in Ohio ordered state officials Monday to recognize the marriage of two men that was performed in Maryland on the death certificate of an Ohio resident in hospice care who the judge says “is certain to die soon.”
Judge Timothy Black issued a temporary restraining order through August 5th at the request of the two men. He could extend the order if (a) it has not been overturned by the Circuit Court of Appeals or (b) the dying man is still alive.
It is worth noting the difference between the state of Ohio and the city of Cincinnati on this matter:
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office defended the state’s laws in filings with the court on Monday, but Cincinnati city lawyers representing Dr. Camille Jones, the vital statistics registrar for the city, declined to defend the law, telling the court, “The City will not defend Ohio’s discriminatory ban on same-sex marriages,but the City’s vital statistics registrar is bound to follow Ohio law until that law is changed or overturned.”
There are several SCOTUS decisions applicable in this case, starting quite obviously with Windsor, which overturned part of DOMA (but did not require states to recognize out of state same sex marriages). The other applicable case is Romer v Evans, a 6-3 decisionwhich overturned a Colorado referendum amending the state Constitution to deny gays protection against discrimination, the Court finding the referendum did not meet the rational basis test.
Here is a key paragraph from the Buzz Feed article:
Looking at Ohio’s bans on recognizing same-sex couples’ out-of-state marriages, while acknowledging its recognition of the marriages of opposite-sex couples who would not be allowed to marry in Ohio, Black concluded, “The purpose served by treating same-sex married couples differently than opposite-sex married couples is the same improper purpose that failed in Windsor and in Romer: ‘to impose inequality’ and to make gay citizens unequal under the law.”
The issue on which that paragraph focuses would apply to most states that do not recognize same sex marriages legally performed in other states. It is this kind of challenge that will inevitably lead to overturning the portion of DOMA that says do not have to recognize same-sex marriage: if you accept out of state opposite sex marriages you would not allow to be performed in your state (degree of relatedness, age) then to deny same-sex marriages is clearly a violation of equal protection.