The U.S. Supreme Court will take a look at seven same-sex marriage petitions for review on September 29 as the justices get ready for the new term, according to Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog:
In order of their filing at the Court, these are the cases: Herbert v. Kitchen (Utah), Smith v. Bishop (Oklahoma), Rainey v. Bostic (Virginia), Schaefer v. Bostic (Virginia), McQuigg v. Bostic (Virginia), Bogan v. Baskin (Indiana), and Walker v. Wolf (Wisconsin).
Together, the petitions raise two constitutional questions: do states have power to refuse to allow same-sex couples to marry, and do states have power to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states? In all of the federal appeals courts’ decisions being challenged in these cases, state marriage bans of one or both of those kinds were struck down under the federal Constitution, either under equal protection or due process guarantees, or both.
As Denniston notes, there’s no telling what if anything they’ll do with the cases, but the Court is moving witih some dispatch, collecting the petitions for consideration early in the term.
Although no one at the Court said this explicitly, the Justices apparently wanted all seven of the petitions so far filed to be ready for the September 29 Conference, which is to be held a week before the new Term formally opens. The seven petitions present a variety of scenarios with regard to who is appealing and what they are asking. There is no way for outsiders to know exactly what the Justices will be looking for as they go over the seven filings.
Those petitions almost certainly will not be the last that the Supreme Court sees in the coming Term. Two other federal appeals courts are poised to rule quite soon, and a third has a case before it but has not yet scheduled a hearing.
The Court, however, need not await the arrival of any other petitions, if it is prepared to take on the controversy itself promptly.
If the Court does grant review of any same-sex marriage cases any time up to the middle of January, a final decision would be expected by next summer.
Creative Commons Attribution