The U.S. Supreme Court, which in October decided not to take up the issue of state bans on gay marriage, may be reconsidering, Reuters reported. The justices will meet behind closed doors on Friday to once again review whether to hear cases on the contentious issue.

The nation's highest court has five same-sex marriage cases pending; they concern bans in Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. At issue is the question of whether states that limit marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The justices will meet on Friday as part of their customary private deliberations over which new cases to hear, and an announcement may follow soon after. The majority of the Supreme Court's jurisdiction is discretionary, and the justices each year typically review less than 1 percent of the 10,000 cases submitted to them.

When the court declined to intervene in the marriage issue in October, seven separate cases were pending and same-sex unions were legal in 19 of the 50 U.S. states. Today, 36 states allow same-sex couples to wed, and the expansion is due in part to the court's very refusal, which cemented lower-court rulings and effectively paved the way for gay marriage in a number of jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday was set to tackle gay marriage bans in three "staunchly conservative Southern states," The Associated Press noted.

The appellate court in New Orleans will hear arguments from state attorneys from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, all of which prohibit same-sex unions, as well as from marriage equality proponents. It consolidated appeals from the three states into one session, a move the AP called "highly unusual."

The cases "could be among the last argued in federal court before the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the issue."

Federal district judges in Texas and Mississippi had struck down gay marriage bans, a ruling the states are appealing; in Louisiana, on the other hand, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman had upheld the state ban, even after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 2013.