Westboro Baptist Church recently made an appeal to a court in Topeka so it can be a complete participant in a legal fight over same-sex marriage in Kansas. The church asked the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to allow it to intervene and play the role of litigant in a case that involves same-sex couples suing state as well as government agencies over their right to marry and more recently over their right to receive driver’s licenses with changed names. The ongoing case also involves same-sex couples wanting to add their spouses’ names to the state’s health plan.

“The courts should bend over backwards to allow the voice of religious objection in the room,” the church argued in a 35-page document, which was submitted on December 31 to the Denver-based appeals court.

Westboro Baptist Church wants the court to reconsider an earlier ruling made by a federal judge in Kansas who did not allow the organization to get involved in the ongoing case. Daniel Crabtree, United States District Court Judge, ruled at the end of last year that lawyers for the state of Kansas could sufficiently represent the church’s interests against the legal challenges pitted by same-sex couples. He also cleared the path in November 2014 for same-sex marriage by ruling in favour of couples who sued to have the state’s prohibition on same-sex marriage overturned. Kansas is now appealing the ruling through its lawyers.

“The Kansas Attorney General is not in a position to protect the religious rights of religious institutions to oppose same-sex marriage on Bible grounds,” lawyer and church leader Margie Phelps wrote in the church’s arguments. “This court has permitted environmentalists to intervene as a matter of right to protect the environment. … Courts should be eager to afford the same level of legal interest to those who have religious objection to and seek religious protection from participating in same sex marriage.”

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