Ninth Circuit en banc updates
Updates from Alaska, Idaho, and Nevada.
Continue 203 Comments October 24, 2014
Archives – October, 2014
EOT will be back tomorrow
Just wanted you all to know that Scottie is off today and will be back tomorrow! In the meantime, here’s a fascinating piece of news: the Mississippi marriage equality case brought by Roberta Kaplan (Edie Windsor’s lawyer who successfully convinced the Supreme Court to invalidate DOMA last year) has been put on a super fast track and will have a hearing in just three weeks. The news never lets up these days!
101 Comments October 23, 2014
Equality news round-up: Ninth Circuit news, and more
News from Idaho and more.
Continue 117 Comments October 22, 2014
Challenge to Puerto Rico same-sex marriage ban dismissed
Puerto Rico marriage case dismissed
Continue 174 Comments October 21, 2014
Equality news round-up: Injunction sought in Mississippi marriage case, and more
News from Mississippi, Arkansas, South Carolina, and more.
Continue 97 Comments October 21, 2014
Three More States Just Won Marriage Equality
By Matt Baume
We just picked up more states with the freedom to marry, and the number could continue increasing over the course of this week. But in several states, officials are blocking the start of marriage despite courts ruling against their bans. We’ll have the details on how couples are fighting back. Plus, more bad news for the National Organization for Marriage. This time it’s a ruling in Virginia that means they’ll lose out on over half a million dollars.
We picked up three new states with marriage equality last week: Idaho, Arizona, and Alaska. Weddings began in Idaho last Wednesday, following a Ninth Circuit ruling that the state’s ban was unconstitutional. A federal judge in Alaska overturned that state’s ban as well. State officials asked for a stay to prevent marriages from starting while they appeal the decision, but the US Supreme Court denied their request.
In Arizona, District Court Judge John Sedwick ruled on Friday that the state’s ban is unconstitutional. Just one day earlier, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne admitted that the state’s marriage ban probably couldn’t withstand a legal challenge. Marriages can start in Arizona right away.
Marriage has also begun in North Carolina. That’s thanks to AFER’s Virginia case, in which two federal courts ruled against the state’s marriage ban. The most recent Virginia victory, which the US Supreme Court allowed to stand, applies to marriage bans in several neighboring states. North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis, who led the campaign for North Carolina’s marriage ban, is attempting to stop the weddings. But at this point chances of success are effectively zero. Tillis is up for re-election in just a few weeks.
South Carolina is also covered by AFER’s Virginia victory. Couples there filed a new lawsuit last week against state officials who have so far refused to allow marriage to start. Similarly, state officials have refused to issue licenses in Kansas, which is covered by Circuit Court rulings that overturned marriage bans in nearby Utah and Oklahoma. Last week several couples filed suit against Kansas officials.
In Wyoming, a federal court has ruled against that state’s marriage ban. The court also imposed a stay, pending appeal, but state officials have indicated that an appeal is unlikely. Couples can’t quite get married yet but they could be able to get married soon depending on what happens with that stay.
Florida officials want to accelerate marriage litigation, and have asked to skip two cases directly to the state Supreme Court for a final decision.
There’ve been more setbacks for anti-gay lawyers. In a new filing, Monte Stewart, the attorney who tried and failed to defend Idaho’s marriage ban, has suggested that the Ninth Circuit secretly assigned pro-gay judges to the case, and that the court should give him one more chance to defend the marriage ban. The court is highly unlikely to grant his request.
And the National Organization for Marriage found out last week that they won’t be getting a big payout from the government over claims that the IRS leaked their tax returns. NOM had requested more than a half million dollars in attorney’s fees. They will instead get nothing.
62 Comments October 20, 2014
