Louisiana agrees Supreme Court should hear same-sex marriage case
Attorneys for the state of Louisiana urged the Supreme Court to take up a case challenging the state’s same-sex marriage ban before a federal appeals court has rendered judgement in a petition filed Tuesday.
The petition for writ of certiorari agrees with plaintiffs in the case that the Supreme Court should address whether the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires states to license or recognize same-sex marriages.
“This Court alone determines whether the time is ripe to settle this issue nationally. If it elects to do so now, Louisiana agrees with petitioners that it should grant certiorari before judgment in this case,” the petitions states.
In order for the Supreme Court to consider the Louisiana case, the justices must agree to bypass the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and take up their challenge to the Louisiana ban. Arguments before the appeals court are scheduled for early January.
In September, a federal judge upheld the Louisiana marriage ban as constitutional. On Nov. 20, plaintiffs in the case asked the Supreme Court to hear the case before a federal appeals court.
The Supreme Court has also been asked to hear arguments in cases challenging same-sex marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee — all of which were upheld as constitutional by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month. So far, Michigan has agreed that the Supreme Court should hear the case regarding that state’s same-sex marriage ban.
“Louisiana’s case squarely implicates a spiraling national controversy that has already nullified the marriage laws of over twenty States and spawned a four-to- one circuit split,” Louisiana’s attorneys wrote in their Tuesday filing.
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