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Six same-sex Cincinnati couples file suit to marry

Six Cincinnati same-sex couples have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against The Director of the Ohio Department of Health and the Director of the Hamilton County Probate Court .

The suit seeks to "secure for same-sex couples across Ohio the right to marry on an equal basis with opposite-sex couples."

The Plaintiffs are Michelle Gibson and Deborah Meem; Heather Apple and Mary Koehler; Ronald Kastner Beck and Dave Beck; Andrew Hickman and Ethan Fletcher; Gary Goodman and Karl Rece, Jr.; and Rhonda Craig and Kendra Dukes.

Attorney Jennifer Branch says, "There is no reason Ohio should continue to permit this discrimination." She says the timing of this lawsuit flows from "the success we've achieved."

Branch is referring to two other lawsuits in which Judge Timothy Black ruled that the same-sex couples who filed suit have the right to be listed on their partner's death certificate and that both same-sex parents can be on their children's birth certificates.

Branch explained Wednesday lawsuit this way, "This case asks the judge to order that the Constitutional Amendment and the marriage ban statute be held unconstitutional on their face."

Ann Thompson has decades of journalism experience in the Greater Cincinnati market and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her reporting.