The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday made history without doing anything. The high court refused to consider decisions from federal appeals courts that struck down bans on same-sex marriages, allowing such unions to go forward in five states.
Legal experts thought the court would agree to hear one of the cases, a review that requires the vote of at least four justices. The court’s denial to hear the cases does not mean it won’t later decide to weigh in on the issue, but for now, the message is that roadblocks to same-sex nuptials won’t pass judicial muster.
This is a monumental step in ending discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Without intervention from the Supreme Court, same-sex marriage became legal in five states, including Virginia, where state officials began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples Monday afternoon. Appeals courts that oversee six other states also have ruled that same-sex marriages should be legal, and those decisions are unlikely to be appealed to the Supreme Court. This would bring the number of states allowing same-sex marriage to 30.
As the blog FiveThirtyEight notes, the pace at which same-sex marriage has become legal is stunning. Just two years ago, only six states and the District of Columbia, which represent 11 percent of the country’s population, had legalized such marriages. Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriages a decade ago.
Maine and Maryland became the first states to allow same sex-marriage by popular vote in 2012. On the same day — Nov. 6, 2012 — voters in Washington rejected a bid by opponents to overturn a law legalizing same-sex marriage passed by that state’s legislature. A measure in Minnesota that would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman also failed that day. Previously, 32 votes in a row had been against allowing same-sex marriage, according to Slate.
With the Supreme Court inaction Monday, the option to marry will likely soon be available to same-sex couples in states that are home to 60 percent of the U.S. population, FiveThirtyEight calculates.
As is often the case, popular sentiment was ahead of the courts and legislatures on this issue. But, once federal courts began ruling that the Constitution required that same-sex couples be allowed to marry, legal obstacles began to fall away.
In June 2013, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to strike down a portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The justices ruled that the statute unlawfully discriminated against same-sex couples in states where they could legally marry by restricting the definition of marriage to heterosexual couples in determining who qualified for federal government benefits.
That decision led to a series of lower court rulings favoring gay marriage.
Unfortunately, there are those in power who continue to fight against extending marriage. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback criticized activist judges (which is an odd criticism because the Supreme Court justices took no action) and said he swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. In Kansas, the state constitution was amended to define marriage as between one man and one woman, and same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses there were turned away Monday, the Associated Press reported.
The U.S. Constitution requires that “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Although the Supreme Court sidestepped the marriage question, the federal court decisions it let stand extend the fundamental right of marriage to thousands of couples. This is inevitable and right under the U.S. Constitution.