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Same-sex marriage became legal in Kansas following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, which found the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples unconstitutional. By June 30, all 31 judicial districts and all 105 Kansas counties were issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples or had agreed to do so. Kansas state agencies initially delayed recognition of same-sex marriages for purposes including but not limited to changing names, ascribing health benefits and filing joint tax returns, but began doing so on July 6.
Kansas had previously defined marriage in its constitution as the "union of one man and one woman" and had by statute denied recognition to same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. Before the Supreme Court resolved the issue, a series of lawsuits had challenged the state's policies with mixed success. In Marie v. Moser, U.S. District Judge Daniel D. Crabtree issued a preliminary injunction barring the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Douglas County and Sedgwick County from enforcing Kansas' same-sex marriage ban on November 4, 2014. He temporarily stayed the injunction until November 11 to give state authorities time to appeal. On November 7, 2014, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied state officials' request for a stay pending appeal. On November 12, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the state officials' request for a stay pending the appeal of Marie. As the injunction in Marie was set to take effect, the Kansas Attorney General, Derek Schmidt, contended that Crabtree's preliminary injunction only applied to the two counties involved in the lawsuit, not statewide. The American Civil Liberties Union maintained that the injunction applied to all 105 of the state's counties. Some of the state district judges, who issue marriage licenses in Kansas, refused to authorize the issuing of marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on their own interpretation of the legal situation.
On November 18, 2014, the Kansas Supreme Court, acting in Schmidt v. Moriarty, allowed the licensing of same-sex marriages in the state's Tenth Judicial District, which covers Johnson County, to proceed. The court ruled that it was within the jurisdiction of Judge Kevin P. Moriarty, as chief judge of that district, to authorize the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on his determination of the law. It left the issue of whether to license same-sex marriages to each judicial district.