Atty. Gen. Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson's instructions came two days after a lesbian couple, Kathleen Aguero and Loretta Pangelinan, filed a legal challenge to the territory's marriage laws after being barred from submitting an application for a marriage license.
"The right to marry the person of one's choice and to direct the course of one's life in this intimate realm without undue government interference is one of the fundamental liberty interests protected for all by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to United States Constitution," the couple's lawsuit asserts. "This exclusion from marriage and relegation to second-class status inflicts serious and irreparable harms upon [the] plaintiffs and other same-sex couples and their children."
Barrett-Anderson cited a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision as the basis for her directive. The appeals court in October found that state bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional.
