Gay marriage ruling means high court review likely

CINCINNATI — The expanding legal acceptance of same-sex marriage in the United States hit a roadblock on Thursday when a federal appeals court panel upheld anti-gay marriage laws in four states, making it more likely that the Supreme Court will take up the issue.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel that heard arguments on gay marriage bans or restrictions in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee on Aug. 6 split 2-1, with Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton writing the majority opinion for himself and a fellow George W. Bush appointee, while a Bill Clinton appointee disagreed.

The ruling concluded that states have the right to set rules for marriage and that such change as expanding a definition of marriage that dates “back to the earliest days of human history” is better done through political processes.

“When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers,” Sutton wrote, adding that it’s better to have change “in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.”

Cincinnati attorney Al Gerhardstein, who represented gay plaintiffs in two cases in which he gained lower-court victories, said he will appeal to the Supreme Court.

“We’re disappointed in the ruling. … We believe the U.S. District Court and the dissent on the three-judge panel got it right,” he said.

Attorneys could seek a review of the panel’s decision by the full circuit court, but with mostly Republican-appointed judges they likely will try to move the issue directly on to the Supreme Court, seeking a definitive ruling.

The dissenting judge suggested that might have been the goal of Sutton and Judge Deborah Cook in their ruling.

“Because the correct result is so obvious, one is tempted to speculate that the majority has purposefully taken the contrary position to create the circuit split,” Judge Martha Craig Daugherty wrote, saying getting the case to the Supreme Court would put “an end to the uncertainty of status and the interstate chaos that the current discrepancy in state laws threaten.”

The president of pro-gay marriage group Freedom to Marry, Evan Wolfson, blasted the ruling as “on the wrong side of history.”

He called it “completely out of step with the Supreme Court’s clear signal last month, out of step with the constitutional command as recognized by nearly every state and federal court in the past year, and out of step with the majority of the American people.”

“This anomalous ruling won’t stand the test of time or appeal,” he said in a statement.

In October, the Supreme Court surprisingly turned away appeals from five states seeking to uphold their marriage bans, even with the gay couples who won in the lower courts joining with the states to ask for high court review.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explained in the weeks following the court’s denial of those appeals that the lack of a split in the appellate courts made Supreme Court review of the issue unnecessary.

Thursday’s ruling out of Cincinnati changes that dynamic, and the big question now is whether an appeal can be ready for the justices in time for consideration this term. Generally, that means the court would have to decide by mid-January whether to hear the case in time for a decision in June. Otherwise, the case would be pushed back to the following term and probably not decided until June 2016.

The ruling followed more than 20 court victories for supporters of same-sex marriage since the Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act last year. A federal judge in Louisiana recently upheld that state’s ban, but four U.S. appeals courts ruled against state bans.

The issue appears likely to return to the Supreme Court so the nation’s highest court can settle whether states can ban gay marriage or gay and lesbian couples have a fundamental right to marry under the U.S. Constitution. Thirty-two states recently asked the Supreme Court to settle the issue once and for all.

When the high court on Oct. 6 unexpectedly turned away appeals from five states seeking to prohibit gay and lesbian unions, its order effectively made gay marriage legal in 30 states. The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals the next day overturned same-sex marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada, the fourth federal appeals court to rule against state bans.

Ginsburg told a Minnesota audience the 6th Circuit’s then-pending ruling would likely influence the high court’s timing, adding “some urgency” if it allowed same-sex marriage bans to stand.

Before the 9th’s Oct. 7 ruling, three other appellate courts, the 10th Circuit in Denver, the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, and the 7th Circuit in Chicago, overturned statewide gay marriage bans in Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia over the summer, ruling that they were unconstitutional.

During the Aug. 6 arguments, it was apparent that Sutton would be the deciding vote, with the two other judges clearly on opposite sides of the debate.

Sutton vigorously questioned each side’s attorneys, though he repeatedly expressed deep skepticism that the courts were the best place to legalize gay marriage, saying that the way to win Americans’ hearts and minds is to wait until they’re ready to vote for it.

“I would have thought the best way to get respect and dignity is through the democratic process,” Sutton, a George W. Bush nominee, said at the time. “Nothing happens as quickly as we’d like it.”

Michigan’s and Kentucky’s cases stem from rulings striking down each state’s gay marriage bans. Ohio’s two cases deal only with the state’s recognition of out-of-state gay marriages, while Tennessee’s is narrowly focused on the rights of three same-sex couples.

Plaintiffs include a Cincinnati man who wants his late husband listed as married on his death certificate so they can be buried next to each other in a family-only plot and a Tennessee couple who both want to be listed on their newborn daughter’s birth certificate.

DAN SEWELL, Associated Press

Associated Press writers Mark Sherman in Washington and Brett Barrouquere in Louisville contributed.