An Arkansas trial judge ordered the state on June 9 to recognize and extend all rights and privileges of marriage to more than 500 same-sex couples who married during May 2014 while the state sought a stay of a trial judge’s order striking down Arkansas’s same-sex marriage ban.
On May 9, 2014, Arkansas Circuit Judge Chris Piazza ruled in Wright v. State of Arkansas, 60CV-13-2662, that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, … <Read More>
My first take on today’s oral argument in the Supreme Court:
The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, No. 14-556, on April 28, considering the questions whether same-sex couples have a right to marry and to have their marriages recognized by states other than those in which they marry. The case consolidated appeals from the plaintiffs in four states – Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Kentucky — whose district court … <Read More>
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, sitting in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Wichita Falls, issued an order on March 26 requiring the U.S. Department of Labor to stay the implementation of a new regulation that changes the definition of “spouse” under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act to include same-sex couple, wherever they reside, who were married in a jurisdiction that allows same-sex marriages. State of Texas v. … <Read More>
On March 3 the Alabama Supreme Court “pulled a fast one,” issuing a per curiam decision seeking to effectively override some federal district court opinions, ordering the probate judges throughout the state to continue enforcing Alabama’s constitutional and statutory prohibitions on same-sex marriage even though the federal district court has declared them unconstitutional, and both the 11th Circuit and the Supreme Court had denied Attorney General Luther Strange’s petition for a stay pending appeal to … <Read More>
The U.S. Supreme Court announced on January 16, 2015, that it was granting four petitions to review the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in DeBoer v. Snyder, 772 F.3d 388 (Nov. 6, 2014), which had rejected the claim that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry and to have such marriages recognized by other states. The 6th Circuit’s ruling, issued on November 6 on appeals by four states from district court pro-marriage equality … <Read More>
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith has ruled in Caspar v. Snyder that even though the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit reversed a trial court marriage equality ruling last year, more than 300 couples who married in the brief period time between that overruled decision and the 6th Circuit’s grant of a stay pending appeal are entitled to have their marriages recognized by the state. Rejecting the state’s argument that the 6th … <Read More>
A while back I posted a chronology of significant developments in the legal campaign for marriage equality since the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2013 ruling in U.S. v. Windsor.
Here is a new chronology, showing significant developments since the Supreme Court denied petitions for certiorari on October 6 in appeals from marriage equality rulings by the 4th, 7th and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals.
Oct. 6 – U.S. Supreme Court denies certiorari in marriage equality … <Read More>
On December 19, the Supreme Court issued an Order denying a Motion by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi seeking an extension of a stay issued by the U.S. District Court in Florida of its ruling striking down the state’s ban on same-sex marriages. As usual, the Court issued no explanation for its decision, but it did indicate that Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia would have granted the Motion. This doesn’t necessarily signify that the … <Read More>
When U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled on August 21 in Brenner v. Armstrong and Grimsley v. Armstrong that Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, he stayed his preliminary injunction until January 5, 2015, to give the state a chance to appeal to the 11th Circuit. He indicated that if the state wanted to have the decision stayed longer until the Court of Appeals could decide on the merits, it should ask the Court … <Read More>
Things have begun to happen so quickly that I have fallen behind in my blogging on marriage equality developments, so here is a quick summary about events during the third week of November.
Monday, November 17 – Plaintiffs in the 6th Circuit marriage equality cases from Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Michigan finished filing their petitions for certiorari with the Supreme Court. These are the first petitions for certiorari in marriage equality cases to be filed … <Read More>