A federal judge on Thursday ordered
Indiana to recognize the out-of-state marriage of a lesbian woman
suffering from ovarian cancer.
U.S. District Judge Richard L. Young
handed down his ruling after holding a hearing in his Evansville
chambers.
Niki Quasney and Amy Sandler, who
married last year in Massachusetts, the first state to legalize such
unions nearly a decade ago, recently joined one of five lawsuits
challenging the constitutionality of Indiana's restrictive marriage
law. They asked Young to order the state to recognize their marriage
so that Quasney, who has stage 4 ovarian cancer, can be listed as
married on her anticipated death certificate and Sandler listed as
her surviving spouse. Young issued a 28-day temporary restraining
order.
“This is, indeed, a case where a
woman is dying and needs immediate relief for her family,” Paul
Castillo, a Lambda Legal attorney who is representing the plaintiffs,
told The
Indianapolis Star. “We are here today so that a woman can
die in dignity.”
The state argued that current law does
not allow for hardship exceptions.
The women have been together 13 years
and are raising two daughters, ages 1 and 2.
The ruling comes a day after the
ACLU filed a similar case involving three plaintiff couples in North
Carolina.
(Related: Utah
defends its gay marriage ban in case with far-reaching implications.)