by Mike Andrew - SGN Staff Writer

The ACLU is asking a federal judge to order the state of Kansas to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's Obergefell decision, and recognize same-sex couples as lawful parents of children they conceived through artificial insemination.

The civil rights group is representing two Kansas couples - Casey Smith and her wife Jessica Smith who were married in California in 2013, and Christa Gonser and her wife Carrie Hunt who married in Canada in 2007. Both couples have children conceived through artificial insemination.

The couples charge that Kansas is still refusing to recognize their marriages, in spite of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June.

In their petition, they argue that Kansas treats female spouses of women who conceive through artificial insemination differently than it treats male spouses of such women, which they say is illegal under the Obergefell decision.

The Smiths have also filed a similar action in a Kansas state court.

Tom Witt, executive director of the LGBT rights group Equality Kansas, said he knows of at least two other couples in Kansas who are facing the same situation.

'The one thing that we've been keeping our eyes open for is exactly this scenario - that the [Sam Brownback] administration would go back on its word, and that it would start treating same-sex couples as second-class citizens,' Witt said. 'It's intolerable.'

After the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages in June, anti-Gay Kansas Governor Sam Brownback said he would respect the law and recognize Gay and Lesbian couples as legally married.

A 1968 Kansas state law says that children born as a result of artificial insemination, 'shall be considered at law in all respects the same as a naturally conceived child of the husband and wife so requesting and consenting to the use of such technique.'

Gonser, however, stated in her affidavit that Kansas University Hospital would not list her and her wife as parents because its computer software only has an option for naming a mother and a father.

She said she later contacted the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to request a birth certificate, but was told by the Office of Vital Statistics that, 'since I was in a same-sex marriage, I could not be listed as a parent on my children's birth certificates.'

'She told me that I would have to obtain a second parent adoption in order to be listed as a parent on my children's birth certificates,' Gonser stated.

'This just shows that recognition is not yet realized in Kansas, which means, in our view, we need a permanent injunction,' said Doug Bonney, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas.

The two couples had already filed a suit for recognition of their marriages before the Supreme Court ruled in June, and the U.S. District Judge in their case granted a declaratory judgment in August, based on the Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell.

However, the judge put off issuing an injunction compelling Kansas to comply, saying he hoped the state would voluntarily fall in line with the Supreme Court ruling.

State officials submitted affidavits and other documents showing that county officials were granting marriage licenses and certificates, and that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment's Office of Vital Statistics was recording them.

But on October 5, the ACLU filed a new complaint charging that its clients were being denied equal recognition in the matter of birth certificates for their children.

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