Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt
on Tuesday announced that the state will appeal a ruling striking
down the state's ban on gay marriage.
U.S. District Judge Daniel D. Crabtree
declared the state's ban unconstitutional in a 38-page ruling handed
down Tuesday afternoon.
(Related: Federal
judge strikes down Kansas' gay marriage ban.)
Schmidt said in a statement that his
office would skip the customary 3-judge panel and ask the Tenth
Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver for an en banc review.
“The State of Kansas continues to
have a strong interest in the orderly and final determination of the
constitutionality of its prohibitions on same-sex marriage,”
Schmidt said in a statement. “The state defendants will promptly
appeal this decision to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and will
ask for consideration by the full Circuit Court. Such a request for
en banc consideration was nor previously made by either Utah
and Oklahoma when their cases were heard by a three-judge panel of
the appellate court.”
A 3-judge panel of the Tenth Circuit
Court of Appeals upheld similar rulings challenging marriage bans in
Utah and Oklahoma. Defendants in those cases appealed directly to
the Supreme Court, which refused to hear the cases.