The class-action suit was brought on the same day that Minnesota and Rhode Island became the 12th and 13th states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Harrisonburg, was made on behalf of two lesbian couples: Joanne Harris and Jessica Duff of rural Staunton, and Christy Berghoff and Victoria Kidd of Winchester in Frederick County near Washington. Each couple has one child.
“Virginia is home for us. Our families are here, our jobs are here, and our community is a great support for us, but it makes us sad that we cannot get married where we live,” Harris, a native Virginian who grew up on a Bedford, Va. pig farm in Bedford, Va., said in a statement.
This is the second federal suit against Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that denied gay couples federal benefits available to married couples
