Last Friday, North Dakota became the final state to file a lawsuit that challenges the ban on marriage for same-sex couples. In Ramsay v. Dalrymple, seven couples ask the court to overturn the State’s constitutional amendment that passed via a ballot initiative in November 2004. Since then, eighteen states and Washington, D.C. have overturned their ban on same sex marriage. Eleven of those states extended benefits after court rulings, which based their decision off of the Supreme Court’s holding in the landmark Windsor case. Considering the momentum of the marriage equality movement and recent court decisions, the outcome looks favorable, but there is still much work to be done.
Wisconsin was the most recent state to successfully challenge its ban on same-sex marriage. There, the Attorney General is appealing the case to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and has asked for an emergency stay. Since the decision, some counties have issued licenses, but others have not been so quick to do so. The confusion is expected to be alleviated when the Circuit Court issues a holding on the stay. The map below assumes that a stay will be issued in Wisconsin soon.
Read more about North Dakota here and Wisconsin here.
