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
theguardian.com,
Dan Roberts in Washington and Amanda Holpuch in New York, Monday 6 October 2014
 |
| The court’s decision was made on Monday morning. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP |
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,
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.
States
could also 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
that the supreme court allowed to stand on Monday.
The supreme
court move took legal experts by surprise, as the prevailing expectation was
that the justices would simply delay making a decision, rather than turn the
appeals 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 favour 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.
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"The Akashic Circle" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, The Humanization of God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.) - (Text version)
“… Gender Switching
Old souls, let me tell you something. If you are old enough, and many of you are, you have been everything. Do you hear me? All of you. You have been both genders. All of you have been what I will call between genders, and that means that all of you have had gender switches. Do you know what happens when it's time for you to switch a gender? We have discussed it before. You'll have dozens of lifetimes as the same gender. You're used to it. It's comfortable. You cannot conceive of being anything else, yet now it's time to change. It takes approximately three lifetimes for you to get used to it, and in those three lifetimes, you will have what I call "gender confusion."
It isn't confusion at all. It's absolutely normal, yet society often will see it as abnormal. I'm sitting here telling you you've all been through it. All of you. That's what old souls do. It's part of the system. …”
Old souls, let me tell you something. If you are old enough, and many of you are, you have been everything. Do you hear me? All of you. You have been both genders. All of you have been what I will call between genders, and that means that all of you have had gender switches. Do you know what happens when it's time for you to switch a gender? We have discussed it before. You'll have dozens of lifetimes as the same gender. You're used to it. It's comfortable. You cannot conceive of being anything else, yet now it's time to change. It takes approximately three lifetimes for you to get used to it, and in those three lifetimes, you will have what I call "gender confusion."
It isn't confusion at all. It's absolutely normal, yet society often will see it as abnormal. I'm sitting here telling you you've all been through it. All of you. That's what old souls do. It's part of the system. …”
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