Four gay couples on Monday filed a
federal lawsuit to force Ohio to recognize their marriages on birth
certificates.
Al Gerhardstein of Cincinnati is
representing the couples, three of which are lesbian. Gerhardstein
in December won a federal court ruling on behalf of John Arthur and
Jim Obergefell – who married in Maryland as Obergefell battled a
diagnosis of Lou Gehrig's Disease – to have their marriage
recognized on Obergefell's death certificate. Obergefell has since
died and the case has expanded to include all legally married gay
couples in Ohio. The state has appealed the ruling.
“Last year the federal court ordered
Ohio to end discrimination against married same-sex couples on death
certificates,” Gerhardstein
said during a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “Today
these moms and dads seek to end discrimination against same-sex
couples and their children on birth certificates. At both ends of
our lifespans, a marriage is a marriage; Ohio must recognize same-sex
marriages and the families founded on those marriages throughout
life.”
One woman in each of three plaintiff
couples from the new lawsuit is pregnant through artificial
insemination and expected to deliver in June. The fourth couple, two
men who live in New York, adopted a boy last year who was born in
Ohio.
The four couples want Ohio to list both
parents on their children's birth certificates.
“The impact this has on families is
enormous,” Elyzabeth Holford, executive director of Equality Ohio,
the state's largest LGBT rights advocate, said in an emailed
statement. “Birth certificates are primary identification
documents for medical care, access to schools, and travel. A birth
certificate also announces to the community: this is a family.”
(Read
the complaint.)