US: Utah couples formally request Supreme Court to take up gay marriage appeal
Attorneys for three gay and lesbian couples in the US state of Utah have officially requested the US Supreme Court to take up the case.
The Utah couples have taken the unusual step to ask the Supreme Court to rule, despite that they won at federal court, because they want the higher court to rule on whether or not the same-sex marriage bans violate the US Constitution.
“Lower courts around the country have correctly recognized that state laws prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying violate the Constitution,” the attorneys wrote.
“Yet because these rulings do not apply nationwide, same-sex couples continue to experience great uncertainty and serious harm.”
The states of Virginia and Oklahoma have also requested that the Supreme Court step in to hear appeals of rulings by courts on their same-sex marriage bans.
In June, Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage was again found to be unconstitutional by the federal court. A three-judge panel from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that the state’s current ban on same-sex marriage violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
More than 1,000 same-sex couples rushed to get married as occurred in December before the Supreme Court once again intervened and stopped the marriages, pending an appeal.
Voters in Utah approved the state’s ban in 2004.
