4th Circuit Court confirms VA decision in favor of SSM

[SteveRogers]

So that means 2 appeals to SCOTUS. I still suspect they wont do anything until one of the appeals courts rules in favor of SSM. So this might not get decided before the 2016 election.

You mean doesn't rule in favor?

Yes I meant in favor of SSM ban. The point being that SCOTUS like to take cases with split decisions. So far every decision is going in favor of repealing SSM bans. But eventually some judge or appellate court is going to uphold a SSM ban (probably for TX) and then SCOTUS will step in...and likely they will make SSM legal everywhere.

So the question is, how long will this take? Will they take it up next session? If not then this will be bigger issue for 2016 presidential campaign.

Yeah, the smart money is on the 5th Circuit to be the first to uphold a ban. Looks like there's still no date set yet for arguments in the Texas appeal, but it shouldn't be too long.

[SteveRogers]

So we've got the following courts of appeals hearing arguments in the near future:

6th Circuit- August 6

7th Circuit- August 26

9th Circuit- September 8

That means decisions in each of those courts ~3 months later. That just leaves us waiting on the 5th, 8th and 11th Circuits. We should at least get the 5th Circuit decision by the end of the year. At that point there won't be much left for the Supreme Court to wait around for.

[SteveRogers]

Maybe the Supreme Court's plan all along has been to dodge the issue by pushing all the circuits to legalize it, denying cert without comment to all the appeals, crossing their fingers that they don't have to resolve any split

That way we effectively get nationwide marriage equality without it being a lightning rod

I'm sure the Court would love it if all the Circuit Courts agreed on legalization. Unfortunately, I think at minimum the 5th Circuit will hold out. Even if a favorable panel rules in favor of SSM, the whole 5th Circuit may reverse en banc.

Regardless, if the Supreme Court doesn't grant cert in this initial wave of cases, we could see the number of states with gay marriage literally double by January or so as decisions in the 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th circuits go into effect. The big Supreme Court decision might just be to get those last 11 states.