As KS county clerks hand out marriage licenses to gay couples, GOP Gov. Brownback, AG Derek Schmidt drag their feet on obeying U.S. Supreme Court

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand lower court decisions striking down bans against gay marriage in five states: Virginia, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Indiana and Utah, affecting all other states within the circuit court jurisdictions of those five states including Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wyoming and Kansas. The ruling says  "a state may not deny the issuance of a marriage license to two persons, or refuse to recognize their marriage, based solely upon the sex of the persons in the marriage union."

Kansas GOP Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who claimed
no court has "squarely decided" whether his state's prohibition
of same-sex marriage is invalid — immediately after the U.S.
Supreme court refused to consider the 10th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals ruling (covering Kansas) that "a state may not deny
the issuance of a marriage license to two persons, or refuse to
recognize their marriage, based solely upon the sex of the
persons in the marriage union."

     After all this, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt maintained, with a straight face, that to date, no court has squarely decided whether the Kansas Constitution's prohibition of same-sex marriage is invalid and that the state will deal with any litigation as it comes.
     Schmidt also said his office is closely watching litigation in other federal appeals courts that could bring the issue before the Supreme Court again.

     The very next day, a unanimous panel of 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges overturned same sex marriage bans in both Idaho and Nevada, also affecting Arizona, Alaska and Montana.
     And still the Kansas GOP drags its feet, inviting litigation costly to both private citizens and the state.
     Said the state's Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, pandering to conservative heterosexuals who banned gay marriage almost a decade ago:

 "The people have spoken on this," Brownback said. "I don't know how much more you can bolster it than to have a vote of the people to put in the constitution that marriage is the union of a man and a woman."

Moriarity

     In Johnson County, a southwestern Kansas City suburb and the state's most populous county, District Judge Kevin P. Moriarity, appointed by Governor Kathleen Sebelius, isn't waiting for Brownback and Schmidt; he has ordered the Johnson County Clerk to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.
     Yesterday, in neighboring Wyandotte county, just north of Johnson County, and the fourth-most populous Kansas county, RJ Brown and Danen Haxton received the first marriage license application given to a same sex couple. They still have to figure out which one of them is the "bride" on the application.

“As of this morning they were denying even this application. They weren't even going to let us fill this out,” Brown said.

     The Kansas City Star reports that Doug Bonney, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri, has reached out to lawyers to join its federal challenge seeking an immediate court order blocking the state’s same-sex marriage ban, after the precedent in the 10th Circuit. It could be filed as soon as next week, Bonney said.