U.S. Supreme Court Will Finally Decide Gay Marriage in 50 States

This story was updated at 5 p.m. with more details.

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether same-sex couples will be allowed to marry in all 50 states, likely resolving the legal issues over the most contentious civil rights issue of recent times.

Arguments are expected in April, with a ruling by June.

In taking up gay marriage appeals in Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, the court said it will consider two key questions: whether states have the power to ban gay and lesbian marriages, and whether states can refuse to recognize marriages performed outside their borders, according to the SCOTUSblog.com.

The court declined to intervene in October, but agreed Friday to take up the issue following a ruling by the a6th U.S. Court of Appeals that gave states the right to ban same-sex unions. The 6th Circuit’s decision upholding states rights was the first defeat in federal courts for gay marriages after a string of appeals court victories.

Now, the Supreme Court will decide the issue with what legal scholars anticipate will be a binding ruling.

At the current time, same-sex marriages are allowed in 36 states, with bans remaining in 14 other states under court challenge.

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The Michigan appeal was brought by two Hazel Park nurses, April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, after the 6th Circuit upheld Michigan’s 2004 voter-backed ban on same-sex marriage. After the vote, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman ruled the ban was unconstitutional. His ruling was reversed.

DeBoer and Rowse challenged the ban in 2012 after initially bringing suit against the state for a law that prohibited same-sex couples from co-adopting children. The two women wanted to adopt each other’s special-needs children.

Emily Dievendorf, executive director of Equality Michigan, an advocacy group representing gays, lesbians and the transgender community, told the Free Press the group is, “optimistic the justices will see right through the flawed and deceptive arguments that people standing on the wrong side of history, like Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, will once again try to present.”

Schutte said in a statement that “people of good will” on both sides of the issue “will be well served by the court’s decision to decide this case and resolve “important issues involving the fundamental institution of marriage, our Constitution and the rights of voters.”

“Court cases, by their very nature, create an adversarial atmosphere between those representing the two sides of an argument,” he said. “But in a democracy, reasonable people can disagree without being disagreeable.”

National Resolution

The Human Rights Campaign hailed the court’s decision to intervene in gay families’ struggle for equality and said it represents “a moment of truth.”

“Marriage has returned to the U.S. Supreme Court faster than virtually any other issue in American history, and there’s a simple reason for that – committed and loving gay and lesbian couples, their children, and the fair-minded American people refuse to wait a single day longer,” Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said in a statement.

“The U.S. constitution does not tolerate second-class citizenship, a fact that has toppled discriminatory marriage bans from Utah to Arkansas,” Griffin said. “We’ve reached the moment of truth--the facts are clear, the arguments have been heard by dozens of courts, and now the nine justices of the Supreme Court have an urgent opportunity to guarantee fairness for countless families, once and for all.”

Gina Calcagno, campaign manager for Michigan for Marriage, told The Detroit News Americans are ready for a “national resolution on this issue.”

“We’ve heard from countless individuals – families, faith leaders, business owners, elected officials, and even our own courts – it’s time for marriage equality, for Michigan, and for the United States,” Calcagno said.

Michigan Must Recognize 300 Legally Performed Marriages

The high court’s decision to decide the issue comes on the heels of a federal judge’s Thursday ruling that Michigan must recognize the marriages of about 300 same-sex couples who wed during the brief, 24-hour period that marriage was legal in the state last spring.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith called the marriages a “fundamental right.”

“In these circumstances, what the state has joined together, it may not put asunder…,” Goldsmith wrote in the opinion validating the marriages.

Last spring, Gov. Rick Snyder acknowledged the marriages were legal, but said the state wouldn’t recognize them, placing those couples in a sort of legal limbo until a final court ruling on the matter.

“This has been a tremendous week for marriage equality,” said Jay Kaplan, staff attorney for the LGBT Project at the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. “Like a growing majority of Americans, we believe it is past time for our nation to extend freedom and equality to all families. ...

“Every day that we’ve had to endure this senseless patchwork of state laws is one less day that loving LGBT couples have had to enjoy the freedom to marry, one less day they’ve had to offer the same protections to their children that others enjoy,” he said.

The landscape has changed dramatically since the Supreme Court last took up the issue of gay marriage in 2012, The Washington Post said. Gay couples were prohibited from marrying in 40 states, but since then, the number of states allowing it has more than quadrupled.

Without the ability to marry, gay advocates say, couples are discriminated in such issues as property rights, health-care decisions, parenting, adoption and custody, taxes, employer benefits, Social Security, veterans benefits, emergency services and others, the Human Rights Campaign said.

Support for same-sex marriage reached a historic high at 55 percent in a Gallup Poll in May. When Gallup first asked Americans about the issue in 1996, 68 percent of respondents opposed it.

More about this on Patch:

• 6th Circuit Could Be Pivotal in Gay Marriage Debate
• 6th Circuit’s Marathon Gay Marriage Hearing Signals Historic Shift
• Federal Judge Strikes Down Michigan’s Gay Marriage Ban
• 6th Circuit Stays Historic Gay Marriage Ruling
• Governor: Gay Marriages Legal, But State Won’t Recognize Them
• Supreme Court Clears Way For Gay Marriage In Virginia, 4 Other States
• Will Supreme Court Justices Hear Michigan Gay Marriage Case?
• Judge Rules MIchigan Must Recognize 300 Same-Sex Marraiges