Wyoming Couple Go It Alone In Challenging Gay Marriage Ban

BY CARLOS SANTOSCOY 
PUBLISHED: AUGUST 25, 2010

A Wyoming gay couple is going it alone in challenging the
 state's law that bans gay marriage, the AP reported.

David Shupe-Roderick, 25, and Ryan W. Dupree, 21, are
challenging the state's ban after the Laramie County Clerk's
 Office refused to issued them a marriage license.

The two men say they are representing themselves because
they cannot afford to hire an attorney.

“I kind of know some about the law, and I know how to
research things,” Shupe-Roderick told the Casper Star Tribune.
 “If I have to do this on my own, I will, because it's a cause I believe in.”

On August 13, the couple asked U.S. District Judge
Alan B. Johnson to end the restriction.

A spokesman for Governor Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, said
Tuesday that the administration would defend the law vigorously.

Unlike California's high-profile Proposition 8 challenge, plaintiffs
 in Wyoming won't have two highly regarded constitutional lawyers,
Ted Olson and David Boies, to argue their case or the benefit of a
deep-pocketed Hollywood-backed group, the American Foundation
for Equal Rights, which was formed specifically to support the lawsuit.

The social conservative group WyWatch Family Action, which supports
 putting a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in the
 Wyoming Constitution, decried the lawsuit.

“We just don't believe that a federal judge should be determining
the definition of marriage,” the group's Becky Vandeberghe said.

A 2008 WyWatch Family Action commissioned poll of 509 registered
 voters found a large majority (74%) of respondents support a
constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. However, the poll
relied heavily on the opinions of registered Republicans, who,
on average, are more likely to oppose marriage equality. According
to a New York Times poll, 63 percent of Wyomingites oppose gay marriage.

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