However the Supreme Court rules after its landmark hearings on same-sex marriage, the issue seems certain to divide Americans and states for many years to come.
During heated arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court over California’s voter-approved constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, the justices verbally tussled with attorneys arguing over the law’s constitutionality — but also hinted that the case could have a surprise ending.
The federal government, in addition to waging its own battle against the federal Defense of Marriage Act, has officially waded into the Supreme Court challenge to California’s same-sex marriage ban, asking the justices to strike down the law, though stopping short of asking the Court to set a nationwide rule.
By today’s politically polarized standards, the Supreme Court’s momentous Roe v. Wade ruling was a landslide. By a 7-2 vote on Jan. 22, 1973, the justices established a nationwide right to abortion.
2011AP1572 Appling v. Doyle
Gay marriage supporters see 41 reasons to fret over the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case of California’s ban on same-sex unions.
The Supreme Court will take up California’s ban on same-sex marriage, a case that could give the justices the chance to rule on whether gay Americans have the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals.
With attorneys still analyzing the health care ruling and the other big decisions from last term, the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing for a new term with even more major issues on its docket, from affirmative action to the standards of proof for class certification.
So if the Supreme Court takes public opinion into consideration — as some pundits assert was the case in Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s switched vote on the health care decision — what does that mean for the upcoming cases involving same-sex marriage rights?
The decision paves the way for the case, which has been winding its way through the federal courts, to be heard by the Supreme Court as early as next year.
The federal Defense of Marriage Act could not be enforced to deny a federal employee the right to have her same-sex spouse covered under her health insurance plan, a U.S. District Court in California has ruled in granting summary judgment.
Dissolving same-sex relationships offer business and transactional attorneys a relatively untapped, unexpected market.
Conservative critics like to point out that the federal appeals court that just declared California’s same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional has its decisions overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court more often than other judicial circuits, a record that could prove predictive if the high court agrees to review the gay marriage case on appeal.
Recently, New York became the sixth and largest state to recognize same-sex marriage. If the current trend continues, more and more states will legalize it.
KAUKAUNA, Wis. (AP) — A religious trial starts Tuesday for an openly gay United Methodist minister who broke church rules. The Rev. Amy DeLong of Osceola in western Wisconsin has admitted to officiating a 2009 marriage ceremony for a lesbian couple in Menominee, violating church rules. The 44-year-old is charged with being a “self-avowed practicing [...]
By DINESH RAMDE Associated Press MILWAUKEE (AP) — A growing number of pastors in the United Methodist Church say they’re no longer willing to obey a church rule that prohibits them from officiating at same-sex marriages, despite the potential threat of being disciplined or dismissed from the church. In some parts of the U.S., Methodist [...]
By TODD RICHMOND Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker has told a judge he wants to stop defending Wisconsin’s domestic partner registry in court because he doesn’t believe it’s constitutional. Members of the conservative group Wisconsin Family Action filed a lawsuit last summer arguing the registry violates the state’s constitutional ban on [...]
