Pennsylvania has become the accidental epicenter for gay-rights litigation, with several suits cropping up over the summer in both state and federal court. Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June in United States v. Windsor, gutting the federal Defense of Marriage Act, two federal suits and three state suits have sprung up in Pennsylvania around the state’s version of DOMA.
The American Civil Liberties Union, with Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller, was the first to file a case challenging the state’s ban on gay marriage in July when it filed a carefully laid case on behalf of 11 same-sex couples and a widow. That case, brought in Harrisburg, was assigned to U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III of the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
