The lawsuit, filed by Lambda Legal, claims banning gay marriage violates the couples’ rights to equal protection and due process under the U.S. Constitution.

“It’s wrong that I can’t marry the one person I cherish most in this world, even after 56 years of love and commitment,” said Nelda Majors, who is a lead plaintiff with her partner, Karen Bailey.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, state Department of Health Services director Will Humble and Maricopa County Superior Court clerk Michael Jeanes are named as defendants in the complaint.

“Our clients deserve to be treated equally by the government for which they pay taxes. They deserve the same basic freedoms that everyone in this state enjoys, including the freedom to marry,” said Jennifer Pizer, senior counsel for Lambda Legal.

In a statement released by his office, Horne said “as Attorney General it is my duty to defend Arizona laws.”

Lawmakers approved a state law barring same-sex marriages in 1996. Seven years later, an Arizona appeals court upheld the constitutionality of the law. Voters in 2008 amended the Arizona Constitution to include the ban.

The lawsuit, which court records show was filed Wednesday in Phoenix, is also requesting that Arizona legally recognize the marriages of couples who wed in other states, Pizer said.

“Without legal recognition of their marriages, they are left vulnerable – scrambling to cobble together often at considerable expense a big pile of documents. And even with all those documents, it still doesn’t give them the legal protection and security their families need, especially in times of crisis,” Pizer said.

Barb Morrissey said she had to carry a packet of legal documents every time she visited her wife, Mish Teichner, in the hospital. Teichner underwent a kidney transplant in January. Morrissey said she has had hospital employees bar her from seeing Teichner. Morrissey said another employee told her, “I’ll try to sneak you in.”

“I felt disrespected and stressed that I was treated this way,” Morrissey said.