Gay couples received licenses to marry from Little Rock county clerks Monday while lawyers for the state of Arkansas asked its highest court to suspend an order gutting a constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage, according to Reuters.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza tossed out Arkansas' gay marriage ban after business hours Friday, setting up Monday's run on courthouses in Little Rock and Fayetteville as the same-sex marriage ban was removed, Reuters reported.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, who recently said he supported gay marriage but would defend the ban, filed paperwork Monday morning formally asking the state Supreme Court to temporarily set aside Piazza's ruling making Arkansas the 18th state in the nation to allow same-sex marriages, according to Reuters.
The Supreme Court ruled last year laws forbidding the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages was unconstitutional, Reuters reported.
Federal judges have ruled against marriage bans in Michigan, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Texas, and ordered Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee to recognize same-sex marriages from other states, according to Reuters.
Clerks issued 23 licenses to same-sex couples in Fayetteville on Monday morning and one to a heterosexual couple, Reuters reported. Fifteen same-sex couples received licenses in Eureka Springs on Saturday, but outside Carroll County, clerks in many of the state's other 74 counties said they wanted further guidance from a higher court.
"With all due respect to the Third Division Circuit Court of Pulaski County, a circuit court does not establish or strike down statewide law," Faulkner County Attorney David Hogue said in a statement Sunday, according to Reuters. "That would be the role of the State Supreme Court."
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen, whom Piazza met on his way into the courthouse, said he married three couples in the first hour after the clerk's office opened, Reuters reported.
"It's the right thing to do. I am a minister. I am a judge. I am ordained to celebrate commitments in marriages and I have believed for a long time that my faith compels," Griffen said, according to Reuters. "This is the love of God joining with the love of people."
