Supreme Court Makes No Announcement on Marriage Equality Cases
The Supreme Court announced it would take up six cases in an order issued this morning, but made no announcement on the marriage equality cases before the court.
The nine Supreme Court justices returned from their summer break yesterday to meet in conference and consider several cases that have been petitioned for a hearing before the high court.
Although the case challenging California’s Proposition 8, Hollingsworth v. Perry, and one of four cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, Windsor v. U.S, were distributed at the conference, the justices did not indicate whether they would be take up the cases during this term.
The high court will issue its next list of cases on Oct. 1 indicating all those cases they will not consider. Opponents of Proposition 8, which amended California’s Constitution to ban same-sex marriage four years ago after the state had already granted that right to gay couples, hope the case will be among those not being heard by the high court. If the justices decline hearing the Proposition 8 case, the decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to strike down Proposition 8 will stand and same-sex nuptials could resume in California in a matter of weeks. However, if the justices do hear the case, oral arguments are unlikely to begin until spring 2013 with a decision coming sometime in June.
Justices could also decide to holdover the Proposition 8 case for another conference later in the term in order to consider it with all of the DOMA challenges petitioned before the court. Although only Windsor was presented to the justices yesterday, there are three other DOMA challenges that have been petitioned but not yet distributed to the justices.
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