Nevada Won’t Defend Marriage Ban

Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto announced Monday that the state will no longer seek to defend an amendment banning same-sex marriage. “When the federal district court decided this case in November 2012, the law regarding treatment of same-sex couples under traditional marriage laws was uncertain,” she said in a statement. “But the legal landscape has since changed.” The Coalition for the Protection of Marriage, which pushed for the initial amendment, will now defend the law on its own. As the Nevada case appeared to be winding down, religious groups filed a 42-page brief Tuesday to urge a federal appeals court to uphold gay-marriage bans.