Glossip v. Missouri Department of Transportation & Highway Patrol Employees' Retirement System

This case does not involve a challenge to the Missouri Constitution’s ban on same-sex marriage. That is an issue for another day. Instead, Kelly Glossip, the same-sex partner of a deceased highway patrolman, presents a challenge to two statutes. The first provides benefits to a surviving spouse of a state highway patrolman who is killed in the line of duty. The second statute provides that the word “spouse” in the first statute shall refer only to a marriage between a man and a woman.

Glossip was denied survivor benefits and appeals the circuit court judgment affirming the administrative…