In Nebraska, Senior U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon closed the same sex marriage case due to workers refusing to do certain jobs. “State workers have refused to issue birth certificates to same-sex couples and instead listed the baby’s biological mother as the only parent on the document.” According to the Lincoln Journal Star it is “ordered that all relevant state officials are ordered to treat same-sex couples the same as different-sex couples in the context of processing a marriage license or determining the rights, protections, obligations or benefits of marriage.”
The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services have quietly changed the state policy and plans to list both names of both same sex spouses on their child’s birth certificate. Leah Bucco-White HHS spokeswoman said that the agency has began the process to list both the child’s biological parent and the parent’s same-sex spouse on child’s birth certificate form which does not have a place for the same sex parents, but will be used. Bataillon ordered the state and ACLU to submit arguments about whether the state should be forced to include the names of both same-sex spouses on Nebraska birth certificates. But the state’s response, filed Tuesday, said the injunction was no longer necessary because Health and Human Services officials promised to make a change.
In the Lincoln Journal Star it was stated that “Omaha Sen. Burke Harr has proposed a legislative resolution that would ask Nebraska voters in November 2016 to repeal the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. That resolution is pending.”