Arizona’s fight against same-sex marriage will cost taxpayers total of $500K

Sedwick was the same judge who ruled in September that lawyers for four same-sex couples in a separate class-action lawsuit opposing the marriage ban received $200,000 from the state.

The plaintiffs include national gay-rights organization Lambda Legal, which filed a lawsuit in March 2014 on behalf of seven couples and two surviving spouses. The ban violated the couples’ rights to equal protection and due process under the U.S Constitution, attorneys had argued at the time.

Attorney Jenny Pizer with Lambda Legal said in an interview with Tucson.com she believed the state was getting off easily.

“This reflects, among other things, the quality and efficiency of our work and resulting reasonableness of the hourly rates charged,” she said in an interview with Tucson.com.

Then-Attorney General Tom Horne was named as a defendant in the complaint. In October 2014, the conservative Horne gave up fighting a federal court ruling that struck down Arizona’s 1996 law barring same-sex marriage as well as a 2008 voter-approved state constitutional amendment outlawing it.

The decision on the Arizona law came after gay marriage bans were struck down in more than two dozen states.

Then, the U.S. Supreme Court declared this summer that same-sex couples have a right to marry in all 50 states.

Pizer said in an interview with Tucson.com she is hopeful that there will not be any more discrimination against Arizona residents who are a part of or are pursuing a same-sex marriage “by official state or municipal policy.”

Federal law lets those who prevail in civil rights cases seek compensation for the costs of bringing such lawsuits to court.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.