Four Couples Sue Tennessee for Gay Marriage Recognition
Were legally married in other states
Four Tennessee same-sex couples, including one from Franklin and another from Greenbrier, have filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Tennessee to force the state to recognize their legal marriages from other states.
The four couples were married in New York or California, where same-sex marriages are legal, and argue that Tennessee's refusal to recognize their marriages violates their constitutional rights. The couples hail from across the state: Matthew Mansell and Johno Espejo, of Franklin; Valeria Tanco and Sophy Jesty, of Knoxville; Ijpe DeKoe and Thomas Kostura, from Memphis, and Kellie Miller and Vanessa DeVillez, of Greenbrier.
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States are required to recognize the legal acts of other states by the US Constitution as a condition of statehood. Such acts include wills, certain types of contracts, and MARRIAGES. So long as a marriage is legal in the state that issued the marriage license, all other states MUST recognize the validity of it even if such a marriage were not legal in all 49 other states.
Federal statutes such as DOMA cannot override the US Constitution. Federal supremacy causes federal statutes to trump state statutes in most cases but the federal constitution has supremacy over federal statutes.