Another small victory for equal rights was accomplished on Wednesday as a federal judge in Charleston (South Carolina) ruled that the state's ban on same-sex marriages violated the United States Constitution, and infringed on the rights of same-sex couples. The judge stayed his own ruling for eight days, presumably to give the state time to appeal and ask for a stay, so same-sex couples won't be able to marry in South Carolina until November 20th.
The chance that the judge's stay might be extended dwindled though, as a new U.S. Supreme Court action became public. A few days ago, Justice Sotomayor issued a stay in the decision by a Kansas judge that same-sex marriage should be allowed in that state (probably because she wanted to get the full court to act). And on Wednesday, the full court did act -- overturning the action by Sotomayor and lifting the stay for Kansas (although Justices Scalia and Thomas indicated they would have left the stay in place). Same-sex couples in Kansas can now marry.
The Supreme Court will probably have to finally rule on whether same-sex marriage bans violate the Constitution or not -- since the decision of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that states can legally discriminate is in opposition to ruling from the 4th, 7th, 9th, and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals that states cannot discriminate by banning same-sex marriages.
This new action by the court in lifting the stay in Kansas gives us an idea of how the court may be leaning -- especially when coupled with the court's refusal to accept appeals of the decisions by the 4th, 7th, 9th, and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals. It's looking more and more like the Supreme Court is poised to uphold the Fourteenth Amendment, and rule that state bans on same-sex marriage do violate the Constitution.
And in 25yrs you will hear the lying xtian bigots claiming it was their efforts that got marriage equality accomplished.
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