Supreme Court on Gay Marriage: SCOTUS Rejects Appeals on Marriage Equality
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined taking up as many as seven cases concerning same-sex marriage, allowing gays to marry in up to 11 new states and leaving nationwide status cloudy.
The court didn't list any of the seven gay marriage appeals last week when it announced the preliminary docket it would be taking on in the current session, which began Monday, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Supporters of gay marriage and the opposition have been lobbying the court to add same-sex marriage to the docket, hoping for some clarity on the issue at the national level. Lower courts have ruled recently that the U.S. Constitution guarantees marriage rights to same-sex couples.
The Supreme Court's rejection of these cases means that same-sex marriage rights will take effect in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin, after the appellate courts previously ruled in favor of gay marriage.
States that also fall under the jurisdiction of those appellate courts -- Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming -- are likely to start allowing same-sex marriage, based on the rulings of the respective appeals courts.
If gay marriage begins in those 11 states, the number of states in the U.S. that allow it will jump to 30 and the District of Columbia. And that list of states could soon expand further.
Two federal appellate courts -- one in San Francisco and one in Cincinnati -- have heard arguments on same-sex marriage and a ruling is expected to come soon.
"The court's letting stand these victories means that gay couples will soon share in the freedom to marry in 30 states, representing 60 percent of the American people," Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, told USA Today. "But we are one country, with one Constitution, and the court's delay in affirming the freedom to marry nationwide prolongs the patchwork of state-to-state discrimination and the harms and indignity that the denial of marriage still inflicts on too many couples in too many places."
Even though the Supreme Court has said that it won't take up the same-sex marriage cases this session, it still could reverse that decision. The court accepts a case for review if at least four of the nine justices vote to hear it.
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