US supreme court decision paves way for sweeping expansion of gay rights!!!
Court declines to hear appeals from five states - Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin - seeking to uphold same-sex marriage bans and paves way for legalisation in six other states
The US supreme court paved the way for a sweeping expansion of gay rights across the United States on Monday, declining to hear appeals from five states seeking to uphold bans on same-sex marriage.
The court’s unexpected decision means that same-sex marriage becomes legal in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin, where states had been appealing defeats in the lower courts.
Couples in six other states - Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming - should be able to get married in “short order”, the Associated Press reported. Those states are covered by the jurisdictions of the courts involved in the defeated appeals.
Legal experts were digesting the implications of the supreme court decision, which would make same-sex marriage legal in 30 states and the District of Columbia - a majority of states in the union.
Evan Wolfson, president of the campaign group Freedom to Marry, welcomed the court’s decision to allow the lower courts’ rulings to stand. “The court’s letting stand these victories means that gay couples will soon share in the freedom to marry in 30 states, representing 60% of the American people,” he said in a statement.
But he called on the supreme court justices to “finish the job”. He said: “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.”
Ed Whelan, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, an opponent of same-sex marriage, expressed massive butthurt criticised the court for its “irresponsible” decision. He conceded that it would be hard for the court to rule against same-sex marriage in future, having allowed so many pro-marriage rulings to stand.
The decision was clear in its implications for the five states directly covered by the appeals turned away by the supreme court. Same-sex marriage could be legal in these states within hours, provided the relevant circuit courts dissolve the stays they had put in place when ruling in favour of same-sex marriage.
“The only point of the stay order was to maintain the status quo pending the ultimate resolution of the cases, and there is now an ultimate resolution of the cases,” said William Eskridge, a professor at Yale Law School.
The decision also paves the way for same-sex marriage to become legal in the six other states which have cases pending in these circuits: West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas. “If I were representing the plaintiffs in all those states, I would be moving for summary judgement today,” said Eskridge.
There are still hurdles in the path to legalising same-sex marriage in those states. District courts may decide that the cases before them were different enough to warrant new appeals. “This is an area of the law in flux though and it is not inconceivable that a district court in one state might decide to argue its case is different enough from another in the same circuit to warrant a fresh appeal,” said Jessica Levinson, a supreme court commentator and professor of law at Loyola Law School in California.
Or states could petition the courts for rulings en banc - that is, in a sitting of all the judges on the court.
But the lower courts would nevertheless be bound by the precedent set by the appeals allowed to stand by the supreme court on Monday.
That decision took legal experts by surprise, as the prevailing expectation was that the court would delay making a decision, rather than turn them away. “The impacts are pretty substantial and that may just may be an indicator that if and when they do [rule], they may well rule in favor of marriage equality in any event,” said Carl Tobias, Williams professor of law at University of Richmond.
One of the supreme court justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, suggested in September that the court would delay taking up a case until a circuit court delivered ruling against same-sex marriage, which may happen in one of the more conservative circuits.
Source
EDITED TO ADDHere are some additional articles that explore the implications in more depth and make it clear just HOW BIG of a deal this is:
--Supreme Court Delivers Tacit Win to Gay Marriage
--The Supreme Court’s Biggest Gay-Marriage Decision
--Did The Supreme Court Just Legalize Gay Marriage?
--Actually, SCOTUS Just Allowed Gay Marriage In 11 States-Including South Carolina and Kansas
--In the 20 states where gay marriage bans remain, what's next?
Happy reading, y'all!
The US supreme court paved the way for a sweeping expansion of gay rights across the United States on Monday, declining to hear appeals from five states seeking to uphold bans on same-sex marriage.
The court’s unexpected decision means that same-sex marriage becomes legal in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin, where states had been appealing defeats in the lower courts.
Couples in six other states - Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming - should be able to get married in “short order”, the Associated Press reported. Those states are covered by the jurisdictions of the courts involved in the defeated appeals.
Legal experts were digesting the implications of the supreme court decision, which would make same-sex marriage legal in 30 states and the District of Columbia - a majority of states in the union.
Evan Wolfson, president of the campaign group Freedom to Marry, welcomed the court’s decision to allow the lower courts’ rulings to stand. “The court’s letting stand these victories means that gay couples will soon share in the freedom to marry in 30 states, representing 60% of the American people,” he said in a statement.
But he called on the supreme court justices to “finish the job”. He said: “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.”
Ed Whelan, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, an opponent of same-sex marriage, expressed massive butthurt criticised the court for its “irresponsible” decision. He conceded that it would be hard for the court to rule against same-sex marriage in future, having allowed so many pro-marriage rulings to stand.
The decision was clear in its implications for the five states directly covered by the appeals turned away by the supreme court. Same-sex marriage could be legal in these states within hours, provided the relevant circuit courts dissolve the stays they had put in place when ruling in favour of same-sex marriage.
“The only point of the stay order was to maintain the status quo pending the ultimate resolution of the cases, and there is now an ultimate resolution of the cases,” said William Eskridge, a professor at Yale Law School.
The decision also paves the way for same-sex marriage to become legal in the six other states which have cases pending in these circuits: West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas. “If I were representing the plaintiffs in all those states, I would be moving for summary judgement today,” said Eskridge.
There are still hurdles in the path to legalising same-sex marriage in those states. District courts may decide that the cases before them were different enough to warrant new appeals. “This is an area of the law in flux though and it is not inconceivable that a district court in one state might decide to argue its case is different enough from another in the same circuit to warrant a fresh appeal,” said Jessica Levinson, a supreme court commentator and professor of law at Loyola Law School in California.
Or states could petition the courts for rulings en banc - that is, in a sitting of all the judges on the court.
But the lower courts would nevertheless be bound by the precedent set by the appeals allowed to stand by the supreme court on Monday.
That decision took legal experts by surprise, as the prevailing expectation was that the court would delay making a decision, rather than turn them away. “The impacts are pretty substantial and that may just may be an indicator that if and when they do [rule], they may well rule in favor of marriage equality in any event,” said Carl Tobias, Williams professor of law at University of Richmond.
One of the supreme court justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, suggested in September that the court would delay taking up a case until a circuit court delivered ruling against same-sex marriage, which may happen in one of the more conservative circuits.
Source
EDITED TO ADDHere are some additional articles that explore the implications in more depth and make it clear just HOW BIG of a deal this is:
--Supreme Court Delivers Tacit Win to Gay Marriage
--The Supreme Court’s Biggest Gay-Marriage Decision
--Did The Supreme Court Just Legalize Gay Marriage?
--Actually, SCOTUS Just Allowed Gay Marriage In 11 States-Including South Carolina and Kansas
--In the 20 states where gay marriage bans remain, what's next?
Happy reading, y'all!