South Dakota Attorney General Marty
Jackley has said he will defend the state's ban on gay marriage in an
upcoming challenge.
Nancy Robrahn, 68, and Jennie
Rosenkranz, 72, of Rapid City married Saturday in Minnesota after
they were denied a South Dakota marriage license by the Pennington
County clerk.
The women, together 27 years, plan on
joining two other couples in challenging the state's marriage ban
approved by lawmakers in 1996 and reinforced a decade later with a
voter-approved constitutional amendment defining marriage as a
heterosexual union.
The two other couples are two men who
plan to marry soon in Iowa and a lesbian couple who married in
Connecticut.
Attorney General Marty Jackley, a
Republican, said he will defend the ban in court.
“It is the statutory responsibility
of the attorney general to defend both our state constitution and
statutory laws, which I intend to do if a lawsuit is filed,”
Jackley
told the AP.
Jackley added that he believes the
issue should be settled at the ballot box “and not from a court
system or a court challenge.”
According to the Human Rights Campaign
(HRC), only four states remain without an active lawsuit challenging
marriage equality bans. Once the South Dakota case is filed, the
remaining states will be Alaska, Montana and North Dakota.