NEWS FLASH

Group Hopes To Advance Same-Sex Marriage In Nevada With Lawsuit | The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund has taken “a strategic step” to advance marriage equality “by filing a federal lawsuit in Nevada seeking equal marriage rights for eight same-sex couples in the state,” Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner reports. According to the complaint, the lead plaintiffs in the new lawsuit — Beverly Sevcik, 73, and Mary Baranovich, 76, of Carson City, Nevada — have been together for more than 40 years, raised three children and have four grandchildren, “despite the constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2000 and 2002 limiting marriage in the state’s constitution to ‘a male and a female person.’” Same-sex couples in the state receive many of the same benefits and privileges of married copules as a result of domestic partnership benefits passed in 2009, “but not the status itself.” According to the complaint, “No legitimate, let alone important or compelling, interest exists to exclude same-sex couples from the historic and highly venerated institution of marriage, especially where the State already grants lesbians and gay men access to almost all substantive spousal rights and responsibilities through registered domestic partnership.”