May 7, 2008

            LANSING − Attorney General Mike Cox today said the Michigan Supreme Court's 5 to 2 ruling on the marriage amendment upheld not only the amendment, but also the rights of Michigan's voters who approved the marriage amendment.

            "In 2004, 2,698,077 citizens voted to affirm marriage as between one man and one woman," Cox observed. "As the Supreme Court noted in their majority opinion, '[T]he people of this state could hardly have made their intentions clearer.'"

            "Today's Supreme Court ruling also affirms our original analysis of the marriage amendment, the process we use and the work of our lawyers − the finest in the state," Cox observed.

            In March, 2005 the Attorney General issued an opinion stating that the marriage amendment prohibited governmental entities from conferring health benefits on their employees based on domestic partnership agreements that are characterized by references to the attributes of marriage. Today's Supreme Court's decision confirmed the Attorney General's legal analysis of the amendment.

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