Same-sex couples in North Carolina have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s ban on second-parent adoptions for gay families, saying it violates their constitutional rights and is discriminatory, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday.

The ban came out of a state supreme court ruling in December 2010 that only stepparents who are legal spouses of the child’s biological parent can adopt. Same-sex marriage has never been recognized in North Carolina, and in May, voters approved a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, so there is no way for same-sex couples to become legal spouses.

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The ACLU, along with its North Carolina chapter, filed the lawsuit on behalf of six same-sex couples and their children. In each of the families, the child has a legally-recognized relationship with one parent and wants to establish the same with the second one. But under the state court ruling, the existing legal parent would have to give up their parental rights for an adoption to occur.

Consequently, the legal complaint argues, these children “suffer numerous deprivations,” including exclusion from a number of benefits, such as health, disability and social security, “as well as uncertainty about their ability to continue their relationship with their second parent if something should happen to their legal parent.”

Elizabeth Gill, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project, said in a statement that the policy was “discriminatory” and didn’t “take into account what’s best for a child.”

“We don’t ever want there to be any question as to who should care for our children,” said Marcie Fisher-Borne, who has been with her partner, Chantelle, for 15 years. Each woman carried one of their two children. “If something were to happen to either one of us, it could tear our family apart.”

Twenty states and the District of Columbia allow gay and lesbian parents to obtain second parent or stepparent adoptions, the complaint said, noting that North Carolina courts have given joint custody to gay or lesbian second parents under a “de facto parent doctrine.” However, that status does not create a “full” parent-child relationship, the complaint said.

Named as defendants are John W. Smith, director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts, David L. Churchill, Clerk of the Superior Court for Guilford County, and Archie L. Smith, clerk of the Superior Court for Durham County.

Churchill and Archie L. Smith did not return calls placed by msnbc.com seeking comment. The North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts said it does not comment on any matters where litigation is pending.

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Gay marriage opponents in Maryland said Tuesday they’ve handed in more than double the signatures required to hold a ballot referendum to squash the state’s new same-sex marriage law.

Thursday is the deadline to submit to election officials at least one-third of the 56,000 signatures needed to get the referendum on the November ballot. But Maryland Marriage Alliance, which supports defining marriage as between a man and a woman, said it handed in some 122,000 later Tuesday.

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The final deadline for all signatures, which the state Board of Elections has to count and verify, is June 30. Derek McCoy, executive director of Maryland Marriage Alliance, told msnbc.com that he was confident they now had the signatures to get on the ballot but they would still continue to collect them.

“What we’re finding is that people are just engaged and passionate about this, even after Obama and the NAACP came out” in support of gay marriage," McCoy said. “Anybody that was on the fence is no longer on the fence.”

A similar effort is under way in Washington state, where legislation approving same-sex marriage was signed into law by the governor earlier this year. Six states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage, while 31 states have constitutional amendments that effectively ban gay marriage (this tally does not include California, where federal judges have ruled the amendment unconstitutional though further appeals are expected).

In mid-May, North Carolina became the most recent state to ban same-sex marriage. The day after that vote, President Barack Obama said he supported same-sex marriage, becoming the first American president to do so.

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Since then, a survey of Maryland voters has shown a “significant” uptick for support of gay marriage among African-Americans, according to results released last Thursday by Public Policy Polling, which said it did the poll on behalf of Marylanders for Marriage Equality -- the group campaigning to keep the same-sex marriage law on the books.

Some 57 percent of the state’s voters say they would support the law in November, compared to 37 percent who are opposed. Meanwhile, 56 percent of African-Americans say they’ll back the new law, with 39 percent opposed, almost a complete reversal from earlier numbers, said the polling firm.

The survey’s overall margin of error was plus or minus 3.4 percent, and for the African-American sample it was plus or minus 4.9 percent.

Nationwide, a Gallup poll released in May revealed closer numbers, with 50 percent of Americans saying same-sex marriage should be legal, compared to 48 percent opposed. Support for gay marriage fell slightly in that poll from a record high of 53 percent in 2011, the first time a majority of Americans favored gay marriage. Opposition was 45 percent in that poll.

Kevin Nix, a spokesman for Marylanders for Marriage Equality, said his group expected opponents to get the required signatures since it was a “low bar” to cross.

“We’re all planning on this going to a referendum,” he said.

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Critics denounced a vote Tuesday by Virginia lawmakers rejecting a gay prosecutor for a judgeship in the state’s capital, saying the representatives were on the “wrong side of history” and pushing a “form of bigotry,” according to local local media reports.

Tracy Thorne-Begland, a prosecutor for 12 years in General District Court in Richmond, was the only one of more than three dozen judicial nominees who failed to win approval from the House of Delegates, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. The final tally was 33 for and 31 against, while 36 either didn’t vote or abstained. Fifty-one votes were needed to approve.

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Thorne-Begland’s nomination for the bench in the same court where he was a prosecutor came under scrutiny last week after the Family Foundation of Virginia, Republican Delegate Robert G. Marshall and others said they opposed his nomination because of his candor on gay rights. They said they didn’t object to him because of his sexuality, The Washington Post reported.

“He holds himself out as being married,” Marshall said, according to the Post. In Virginia, where gay marriage is not legal, he said Thorne-Begland’s “life is a contradiction to the requirement of submission to the (state) Constitution.”

But Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring described the decision as an “embarrassment” for Virginia that cast “a definite pall on the state,” and said Thorne-Begland would have done a great job.

“It's hard to think about what happened in the General Assembly and not conclude that it's a form of bigotry,” Herring told reporters, the Times-Dispatch reported.

"We are on the wrong side of history," said Democratic Sen. A. Donald McEachin, of the rejection. "This is not our finest hour."

Thorne-Begland told the Times-Dispatch after the vote: "I look forward to continuing to serve the citizens of the city of Richmond and the great Commonwealth of Virginia."

Thorne-Begland announced he was a gay Navy officer some two decades ago on the television program “Nightline.” That led to an  honorable discharge for the decorated officer under the military's former "don't ask, don't tell," policy, according to the Times-Dispatch.

That policy, repealed in 2010, banned gay men and women from serving openly in the military.

The Virginia assembly’s decision came a week after North Carolina voting down gay marriage while President Barack Obama became the country’s first president to support same-sex unions. A Gallup poll released last Tuesday found that 50 percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage while 48 percent were opposed. It was the second time that at least half of Americans had backed same-sex marriage.

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Half of Americans believe gay marriage should be legal, but nearly as many are opposed, the Gallup organization said Tuesday in releasing a new poll that it said underscores “just how divided the nation is on this issue.”

Fifty percent of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal and bestow the same rights as traditional marriage, compared to 48 percent who don’t, according to the poll.

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Support for gay marriage fell slightly in the new Gallup poll from a record high of 53 percent in 2011 – the first time a majority of Americans favored gay marriage -- while opposition rose from 45 percent.

Smaller same-sex marriage battleground this year than in 2004

The poll, conducted May 3-6 of a random sample of 1,024 adults, had a maximum margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, Gallup said.

“This year's results underscore just how divided the nation is on this issue. As a result, President Barack Obama's campaign strategy team obviously is continuing to grapple with how to handle it -- with the vice president on the one hand essentially endorsing legalized gay marriage, while the administration on the other hand stops just short of the same pronouncement,” the poll said in a statement, referring to Vice President Joe Biden’s comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was “absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage.

Biden: I'm absolutely comfortable with gay marriage

The release of the poll came as North Carolina residents voted Tuesday on a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman and make marriage the only domestic legal union that would be valid in the state. Recent polls show the amendment passing. Thirty states already have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, while eight states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage.

“We’re having a great debate about marriage in this country, and it’s not at all settled about which way we’re going to go,” said Thomas Peters, cultural director of the National Organization for Marriage, which supports the amendment. “Obviously … we believe that’s going to be settled one way.”

Gay-marriage advocates fear setback in North Carolina

In a NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released in March, Americans favored same-sex marriage by 49 percent to 40 percent. That marked  a reversal from October 2009, when opponents trumped supporters by 49 percent to 41 percent. Both women and black voters -- constituents that are strongly in Obama’s corner -- have moved in significant numbers to supporting gay marriage, that poll said.

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Gallup noted that “Obama's core constituency of Democrats strongly supports the issue, as do the majority of the important election group of independents. The president has said his view on the issue is ‘evolving,’ so it is possible he will eventually go on record as supporting gay marriage, but for now, he officially remains opposed.”

According to the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, a key electoral group -- suburban voters -- narrowly favored gay marriage, 45 percent to 43 percent. Obama supported civil unions but opposed marriage for gay couples during the 2008 campaign.

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Paul Guequierre, a spokesman for Human Rights Campaign, which works on equal rights for the LGBT community, said the Gallup numbers were promising and he wasn’t sure that people were split as much as they once were.

“The news from Gallup today was very encouraging. It’s great to see that the American people are moving towards a position of support for LGBT equality. We’ve seen the numbers move in our favor for a number of years now, and to see the number over 50 percent is always encouraging,” Guequierre said. “It was just a few years ago, we were well below 50 percent, and we see the numbers moving in our direction.”

NBC's Domenico Montanaro contributed to this report

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Updated at 8:30 a.m. ET: North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday night banning gay marriage, but the measure also goes one step further by not allowing civil unions.

The state becomes the last in the South to approve an anti-gay marriage amendment and joins 30 others with similar measures. Incomplete returns Tuesday night showed the amendment passing by 60 percent of the vote.

The amendment, also known as Amendment One, would make marriage the only legal domestic union valid in the state. Opponents said the measure was unnecessary because a state statute has banned gay marriage in North Carolina since 1996. They also argued that domestic partners – both straight and gay – and their children could lose health benefits under the amendment, but advocates for the new measure claim that will not happen.

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Making this a constitutional amendment was important, said Rachel Lee, a spokeswoman for Vote For Marriage NC, because “those statutes are vulnerable to the will of an activist judge or future legislature who could overturn the law with a single court ruling or by a single vote of the legislature.”

Lee watched the election results at a party in Raleigh with grassroots coordinators and coalition members. When it became clear the amendment had passed, they cut a vanilla wedding cake topped with a figurine of a bride and groom.

“If you looked at a map of our country, you saw North Carolina as the only one in the Southeast without an amendment preserving marriage between a man and a woman,” Lee said after the results had come in. “North Carolina had a target on her back.”

Half of Americans support gay marriage in new Gallup Poll

To overturn the amendment approved Tuesday night, the legislature would have to overrule the amendment by a three-fifths vote and get voter approval. Before the amendment passed, a judge or simple legislative majority could have overturned the 1996 statute banning gay marriage.

“This puts up a bigger barrier,” said John Dinan, a political science professor at Wake Forest University.

Dinan said the amendment was introduced after Republicans won a majority in both houses of the state legislature in 2010.

“It’s been a pretty easy win in every southern state,” Dinan said. “It never got to the ballot in North Carolina because Democratic legislatures never let it get there.”

Dinan said the amendment’s impacts would not be immediate.

“The one place it could make a difference is in eight or nine cities in North Carolina that give out insurance benefits to same-sex couples,” Dinan said. “Lawyers might have to start taking a real close look at those insurance benefits that are given out and they might have to change those.”

Melissa and Libby Hodges of Durham could be among those affected by the amendment. They worry their 5-year-old daughter may lose her health benefits, as she is covered by Libby, who cannot legally adopt her. By Tuesday afternoon, the moms had filled out paperwork for private insurance.

Jeremy Kennedy, campaign manager for Protect All NC Families, which was against the amendment, echoed the concern about health benefits for domestic partners, gay or straight. His group also is worried that victims of domestic violence may no longer be covered by statutes addressing that type of crime.

“We know the consequences that we’re listing, but there’s a whole bunch of unintended consequences that we probably haven’t even thought of yet that will come up in the courts after this,” Kennedy said.

Thomas Peters, cultural director of the National Organization for Marriage, which supports the amendment, said children of gay parents in other states where similar amendments have passed have not lost their health insurance. He said he doubts that would happen in North Carolina.

Lee said the amendment would “in no way impact domestic violence protections, child custody or end of life desires."  

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Voting began early Tuesday on the marriage amendment and candidate races in the 2012 primary, but 512,000 people – or 8 percent of registered voters – already had participated through absentee ballot, according to the State Board of Elections. That record turnout surpassed even the 2008 primary, which included Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the ballot, according to Democracy North Carolina.

Several high-profile figures – from former President Bill Clinton to evangelist Billy Graham – and national advocacy groups weighed in on the amendment.

“We’re having a great debate about marriage in this country, and it’s not at all settled about which way we’re going to go,” Peters said.

Before North Carolina's amendment passed, the last state to approve a constitutional amendment did so in 2008. Eight states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage. 

Back in Durham, Libby and Melissa Hodges were debating whether to move to another state, where gay marriage would be legal.

They moved to North Carolina from Georgia in part because at the time, North Carolina allowed gay partners to adopt their children. That is no longer legal.

“My brother said, ‘If the amendment passes, North Carolina will be more backward than Georgia, will you move back to Georgia then?’” Melissa Hodges said. “I said, ‘You’re so wonderfully sweet, but no.’”

But leaving North Carolina would be hard. Both are city planners close to being vested in the state’s pension plan. Selling their home would be difficult, Melissa Hodges added, and their daughter was accepted into their first-choice kindergarten. Plus, another move would take her away from her brother, with whom she is close.

On Tuesday night, the Hodges watched the results online after putting their daughter to bed.

"She asked us before we put her to bed to make sure to tell her in the morning that we won," Melissa Hodges said. "She doesn't get the stuff with health insurance, but we told her that we'll always take care of her, not to worry about that."

Msnbc.com's Isolde Raftery contributed to this report.

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