Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin had filed a lawsuit in November 2004 challenging the ban on same-sex marriage in Oklahoma following the majority approval of a ballot measure. Until Thursday, the couple recently secured a major victory as a three-judge panel of the state appeals court is set to hear arguments of the same-sex marriage ban, The Denver Post said.
Bishop and Baldwin filed their lawsuit along with co-plaintiffs and couple Susan Barton and Gay Phillips. At the time of the filing, Massachusetts was noted to be the only US state that allowed lesbians and gays to get married legally. On Thursday, the local paper said the number has reached 17, and nine federal district judges just recently struck down marriage bans in states across the country.
On the other hand, Bishop and Baldwin said that the road to obtaining their constitutional rights legally was marred by several setbacks. Recalling them, Baldwin said that she and the other co-plaintiffs have to revise their lawsuit numerous times, from naming the country clerk instead of the Oklahoma governor and attorney general as defendants to the apparent stubbornness of presiding judge Terence Kern. Baldwin said that Kern had not followed through on striking down the marriage ban in Oklahoma despite the fact that the US Supreme Court had declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional in the summer of last year.
"And he didn't, and he didn't. "He drove us crazy. The Utah ruling came down on Dec. 20 and (Kern) still hadn't decided. We were beside ourselves. We joked that all we want for Christmas was a favorable court decision," Baldwin said.
Kern in January took action and struck don the gay marriage ban in Oklahoma but did so before staying the action pending appeals, which prevented same-sex couples from getting married legally. However, in a twisted turn of events, Kern ruled that Baldwin and the co-plaintiffs sued the wrong people, and said that it should have been the Oklahoma governor and attorney general.
The Denver Post said that even if Baldwin and the co-defendants will be able to get a favorable ruling, they have vowed to continue their advocacy in ensuring equality for the LGBT community.
"The irony is the conservative states will get us to where we want to get. In Oklahoma you can still be fired from your job or evicted from your house for being gay. Marriage is not the final frontier," she told the paper.
