LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Two Kentucky couples sued the state Friday, seeking to force it to issue same-sex marriage licenses after a federal judge ruled earlier this week that unions performed legally in other places must be recognized by the Bluegrass State.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Louisville seeks to build on that earlier ruling by raising the issue of whether Kentucky should sanction the marriages within its borders.
The suit comes on the heels of a flurry of rulings and other legal activity as activists push more states to recognize gay marriages. A federal judge in Virginia late Thursday struck down that state’s ban, ruling it was unconstitutional.
Also Thursday, activists in Nevada launched a campaign to put a measure on the 2016 ballot giving voters the option to change the state constitution to allow gay marriage, and lawmakers in Wisconsin backed a similar proposal there. Lawsuits in Alabama and Louisiana are seeking to push those states to either acknowledge or allow same-sex unions.
In Kentucky, two couples, Timothy Love and Lawrence Ysunza, who have been together for 33 years, and Maurice Blanchard and Dominique James, who have been together for a decade, want U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II to issue order the state to stop denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
“To have that acknowledged, we would be elated. Obviously, there’s a lot to it,” James told The Associated Press. “We just want to be treated equal to our heterosexual brothers and sisters. If we can get that, we will be satisfied.”
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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Kentucky’s attorney general has offered to assist hemp supporters making preparations for the start of a hemp-growing pilot program in a state where the non-intoxicating relative of marijuana once flourished.
The announcement Friday reflects cooperation between Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway and Republican Agriculture Commissioner James Comer. Both are potential candidates for governor next year.
“I appreciate Commissioner Comer working with the Office of the Attorney General as he implements the pilot projects in Kentucky,” Conway said in a statement.
Senior staff members in both their offices are reviewing language for the pilot hemp programs to ensure they comply with the new federal farm bill. That new farm policy allows the start of pilot growing programs in states that already allow the growing of hemp, though federal drug law has blocked actual cultivation in most.
At Comer’s request, Conway has pledged to contact federal border patrol officials to ensure hemp seeds for the pilot project are legally imported for the purposes outlined in the farm bill.
Comer, who has championed the return of hemp production to Kentucky, has said the availability of seeds is an obstacle to overcome in getting a small experimental crop in the ground this year. Under the farm bill, state departments of agriculture will designate hemp-cultivation pilot projects for research purposes.
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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - The Kentucky House passed a bill Friday that’s part of an effort to improve kindergarten readiness by expanding training for preschool staffs and broadening use of a rating system to critique day cares and preschools.
The proposal is a response to Kentucky’s emergence as a winner late last year in a national competition for government grants to improve early childhood learning. Kentucky claimed a $44.3 million grant as part of the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge competition.
Most of the money from the four-year grant will be used to bolster training at child-care centers and preschools, and to provide incentives to improve programs, said Rep. Derrick Graham, the bill’s lead sponsor.
“The end goal is that more children will be in a high-quality early childhood program,” said Graham, D-Frankfort. “And as a result, they will be ready for kindergarten when the time comes.”
The measure passed the House on a 79-11 vote. It now heads to the Senate.
Kindergarten readiness remains a nagging problem for Kentucky education. A recent report indicated about half of kindergartners in the Bluegrass state aren’t prepared to master essential skills in school.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - The widow of a former cigarette factory worker lost her bid on Friday for a new trial seeking compensation for her husband’s death, contending that he died of exposure to asbestos while working and smoking at a factory that made cigarettes.
The 2-1 decision by the Kentucky Court of Appeals rejected an argument by Wanda McGuire that Lorillard Tobacco’s practice of giving out asbestos-filtered Original Kent cigarettes to employees in the 1950s resulted in his contracting and dying from mesothelioma three years ago.
McGuire contended that a Jefferson County jury received improper instructions about Lorillard’s possible liability for giving employees free cigarettes that had asbestos-laden filters. Circuit Judge Charles L. Cunningham instructed jurors to consider two years of asbestos exposure when weighing whether Lorillard was liable rather than the full three years McGuire worked at the company’s Louisville production plant.
Judges Laurence B. VanMeter and James H. Lambert found any error made in the instructions proved harmless when the jury found in favor of the cigarette company.
“In other words, it is not reasonable to believe that the jury’s consideration of three years of smoking Original Kent cigarettes, from August 1953 to 1956, as opposed to two years, August 1954 to 1956, as instructed, would have affected the verdict with respect to Lorillard,” VanMeter wrote for the pair.
Judge Joy A. Moore split with her colleagues on that issue, saying jurors could have concluded Bill McGuire had been exposed to asbestos from the cigarettes, regardless of the time frame.
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