There are two federal district court challenges pending in South Carolina. The earlier-filed one, Bradacs v. Haley, sought recognition for a same-sex couple’s marriage contracted in the District of Columbia. It was filed by two local attorneys in Columbia, South Carolina. In a November 10 order in that case, District Judge J. Michelle Childs granted a motion to dismiss Governor Nikki Haley as a defendant in the case, finding that she played no direct role … <Read More>
Legal Issues
Federal Courts in Missouri and West Virginia Issue Marriage Equality Rulings
On November 7, one day after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected marriage equality claims from Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky, federal district courts in Missouri and West Virginia issued new marriage equality rulings. Chief U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers of the Southern District of West Virginia granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs in McGee v. Cole, a case brought by Lambda Legal and The Tinney Law Firm. Senior U.S. District Judge Ortrie … <Read More>
6th Circuit Opens Up Circuit Split on Marriage Equality
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit voted 2-1 to reverse marriage equality decisions from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee on November 6, creating a split of circuit authority that appeared calculated to provoke Supreme Court review just one month after the High Court had turned down petitions from five states in three circuits, effectively allowing marriage equality decisions to take effect in those states. The opinion for the … <Read More>
October Was a Monster Month for Marriage Equality in the United States
In preparing to record the November issue of the Lesbian/Gay Law Notes podcast today, I put together a chronology of marriage equality legal developments during October as a reference source, and decided to post it here. Any additions or corrections are welcome. I didn’t include every little motion filing, but tried to hit the most significant things. Of course, the main event was the Supreme Court’s denial of cert in all the pending marriage cases … <Read More>
Kansas Marriage Equality Ruling May Go to the 10th Circuit for En Banc Review
U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree ruled on November 4 in Marie v. Moser that the Kansas ban on same-sex marriage violates the 14th Amendment. The Obama appointee, who has been a federal judge for less than a year, rejected the state’s argument that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1972 ruling in Baker v. Nelson “controls the outcome here” and instead applied the recent decisions by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, Kitchen v. Herbert and Bishop … <Read More>
Federal Court in Puerto Rico Dismisses Marriage Equality Case
U.S. District Judge Juan M. Perez-Gimenez ruled on October 21, 2014, that he was bound by a precedential decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal on behalf of Puerto Rican same-sex couples seeking either to marry or to have their out-of-state marriages recognized by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The judge based his ruling in Conde-Vidal v. Garcia-Padilla on the 1st Circuit’s 2012 … <Read More>
Wyoming Marriage Equality Begins on Tuesday, Oct. 21
State authorities in Wyoming announced that Attorney General Peter Michael will file a notice with the U.S. District Court on Tuesday, October 21, certifying that the state will not appeal U.S. District Judge Scott W. Skavdahl’s Order, filed on Friday, October 17, confirming that under 10th Circuit precedents the state must allow same-sex couples to marry. The judge had stayed his order until October 23 at 5 pm unless the state certified earlier that it … <Read More>
Alaska Joins the Marriage Equality Column
Over the protest of Alaska Governor Sean Parnell, who vowed to undertake what appears to be a futile appeal, U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Burgess issued a surprise marriage equality ruling on Sunday, October 12, in Hamby v. Parnell, 2014 WL 5089399, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145876. Burgess held a hearing on the 10th and told the parties that he would issue a ruling “soon,” but nobody was expected a Sunday ruling just two days … <Read More>
Marriage Equality: The Day After and the Sequels
The day after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review pro-marriage equality rulings by three federal courts of appeals in four cases directly affecting the marriage bans in five states, another circuit was heard from. A unanimous three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on October 7 in favor of marriage equality in cases from Nevada and Idaho. Writing for the panel, Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who was appointed to … <Read More>
Supreme Court Denies Review of Marriage Equality Rulings from Three Circuits
Today (October 6) the Supreme Court announced that it had denied petitions for certiorari in Bogan v. Baskin (Indiana), Walker v. Wolf (Wisconsin), Herbert v. Kitchen (Utah), McQuigg v. Bostic (Virginia), Rainey v. Bostic (Virginia), Schaefer v. Bostic (Virginia), and Smith v. Bishop (Oklahoma). In these cases the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 7th and 10th Circuits had ruled in recent months that same-sex couples have a right to marry and to have … <Read More>