Same-sex marriage in Georgia (U.S. state)

On April 22, 2014, three same-sex couples and a widow filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on behalf of themselves and all unmarried same-sex Georgia couples and all Georgia residents who have married same-sex spouses in other jurisdictions. They later added another couple. Two of the four couples had married in other states, Connecticut and New Hampshire. The suit, Inniss v. Aderhold, named Deborah Aderhold, State Registrar and Director of Vital Records, as the principal defendant. District Court Judge William S. Duffey Jr. was considering the defendants' motion to dismiss.[6] Defendants argued for an extension to file their briefs because of the volatility of cases around the country. Judge Duffey granted an extension to October 22, 2014.

On January 8, 2015, Judge Duffey denied the defendants' motion to dismiss.[7] He found that the plaintiffs were asserting they had a fundamental right to marry a person of the same sex, which is not a right protected by the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Since a fundamental right was not at issue, he explained he would assess Georgia's ban under the least restrictive standard of review, rational basis. He denied the motion because the state defendants had not yet met the rational basis standard by explaining the link between Georgia's ban on same-sex marriage and the state's interest in "child welfare and procreation".[8]

On January 20, 2015, the defendants asked Judge Duffey to suspend proceedings until the U.S. Supreme Court rules in pending same-sex marriage cases,[9] and the plaintiffs supported that request on January 27.[10] On January 29, the court suspended some proceedings, but allowed the parties to appeal his earlier order to the Eleventh Circuit, so that court would have a wider set of arguments to consider along with the Florida case, Brenner v. Scott.

The case was the subject of dispute in the 2014 re-election campaign of Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, who was defending the state's position, and his opponent Greg Hecht, who advocated not defending the state's ban on marriage rights for same-sex couples.[6] Olens was re-elected.