Four married same-sex couples have joined with the Forum for Equality Louisiana in filling a federal lawsuit Wednesday challenging the Louisiana Constitution’s prohibition against recognizing same-sex marriages performed legally in other states. The Louisiana Constitution as amended in 2004 defines marriage as “only of the union of one man and one woman,” and states that [...]

US Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against President Barack Obama, the Director of National Intelligence, the director of the NSA, and the director of the FBI challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s surveillance program. The class action complaint seeks a declaration that the Mass Association Tracking Program (MATP) violates the Fourth [...]

Judge Terence Kern for the US District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma issued a temporary restraining order on The Apothecary Shoppe in Tulsa to stop the pharmacy from providing an execution drug to the Missouri Department of Corrections for an upcoming lethal injection. The restraining order was issued after a federal lawsuit was [...]

The main opposition party in Sri Lanka, The United National Party (UNP) released a statement Thursday demanding the Sri Lankan government conduct an investigation into alleged war crimes that occurred during the 26 year Sri Lankan Civil War that ended in 2009. The Sri Lankan government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil [...]

The United States District Court of Maine ruled on Wednesday that a city ordinance banning people from panhandling in median strips of streets was unconstitutional. US District Judge George Singal found that the Portland, Maine ordinance’s distinction between allowing people to be in the medians to place political campaign signs, and disallowing people to loiter [...]

The UN Special Rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez on Wednesday urged the Tajikistan government to implement policies and laws that have been previously adopted by the government in order to end torture and ill-treatment within the country. Mendez was encouraged by Tajikistan’s response to his last visit and recommendations he had given to the government [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled Wednesday that Kentucky must recognize valid out-of-state marriages between same-sex couples living in Kentucky. The case was brought by four same-sex couples living in Kentucky, who had been legally married in Canada or other US states prior to moving to Kentucky. [...]

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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Missouri filed a lawsuit on Monday in the 16th Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri on behalf of eight same-sex couples seeking recognition for their marriages, which were all performed out of state. Currently, Missouri’s Constitutional Amendment 2 , approved by Missouri voters in 2004, [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Steven Baicker-McKee of the Duquesne University School of Law notes that the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in ruling that a declaratory judgment action does not affect the court’s jurisdiction or shift the parties’ burden of proof …