Mike DeWine was speaking to the Akron Press Club the day after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review judges' decisions striking down gay marriage bans in five other states. And the audience repeatedly asked him about the state's defense of its own ban, now before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
DeWine has opposed gay marriage but he said continuing the fight is his professional, not personal, concern.
"Voters of the state of Ohio voted 10 years ago by a pretty big margin to say that marriage is only between a man and a woman," DeWine said. "If the voters on that same day had voted for a different constitutional amendment, which said marriage could be between a man and a man or a woman and a woman, I would have defended that law just as vigorously. That's my job as attorney general."
The 6th Circuit decision is likely to lead to an appeal, either by the state or by gay-marriage advocates. And that would give the U.S. Supreme Court one of its next chances to decide whether marriage is a state's rights or a civil rights issue.
