INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – The Indiana attorney general's office has opened the door to allowing one lesbian couple's marriage to survive a stay order that halted same-sex weddings in the state.
In a four-page filing Tuesday, the attorney general's office repeated its argument that Indiana law allows no hardship exception for Niki Quasney and Amy Sandler. Quasney is dying of ovarian cancer.
But the filing invited the 7th U.S. Circuit of Appeals to grant the couple an exception if it could find a legal justification. It said Quasney and Sandler deserve a hardship exception.
The couple's attorneys from national gay rights group Lambda Legal had asked appeals court to lift its stay only for Quasney and Sandler. The stay temporarily blocked a federal judge's ruling last week finding Indiana's gay marriage ban unconstitutional.
