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Evans v. Utah - Freedom to Marry in Utah

Location: Utah
Last Update: July 18, 2014

What's at Stake

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Utah, and Strindberg & Scholnick, LLC; have filed a lawsuit in Utah state court on behalf of four same-sex couples who were legally married in Utah after a federal court struck down a state ban, but before the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily halted marriages from taking place while the state challenged the decision. Although the marriages were valid, the state has announced that it has placed recognition of their marriages on hold indefinitely.

The lawsuit argues that once same-sex couples are legally married in Utah, they gain protections that cannot retroactively be taken away under the due process clauses of the Utah and United States Constitution.

The lawsuit is separate from the original federal case challenging Utah’s marriage ban, which is on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. That case was brought by the law firm of Magleby & Greenwood on behalf of three other couples. The ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in that case.

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