The gay couple who filed a lawsuit that
successfully overturned Utah's gay marriage ban are separating.
State Senator Derek Kitchen announced
the news on Instagram.
“Within our fight for marriage
equality, we fought for all the challenges and rights that come along
with it,” Kitchen wrote on Sunday. “So, it is with much love and
in the interest of living with full transparency still, that we are
letting you know that we have decided to pursue individual paths and
end our marriage.”
“Had we known that this would be the
outcome when we met, we would do it all over again,” he added.
Kitchen, a Democrat, and Moudi Sbeity
filed their lawsuit in 2013. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 ruled
that gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry,
toppling state laws and constitutional amendments that restricted
marriage to opposite-sex couples.
The men married in 2015. They own a
cafe together and said that they will remain business partners.