In a one-sentence order handed down on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court has refused a request to stop same-sex marriages in Oregon after a lower court ruling overturned the state’s ban.
The Washington Post is reporting that the full court denied a request by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) to put marriages on hold in Oregon while they appealed a May 19 ruling by U.S. District Judge Michael McShane which declared the state’s ban to be unconstitutional.
At issue was not so much the merits of the case but the fact that procedural issues will make it unlikely that NOM’s appeal will succeed.
NOM decided to intervene in the case when the state’s attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum (D), said she agrees that the ban – which was approved by 53 percent of voters in 2004 – is unconstitutional and has refused to defend it in court. This left no one in an official government position to defend traditional marriage. The federal judge who invalidated the state’s ban refused to allow NOM to join in that case — among other reasons, because he found it had tried to join in too late. After a failed attempt to delay the ruling at the 9th Circuit, NOM decided to try the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the Oregon Catholic Conference issued a statement decrying McShane’s ruling and vowing to continue the fight for traditional marriage.
“Despite the judge’s ruling, authentic marriage remains what it has always and only been according to God’s design: the loving union between one man and one woman for the mutual benefit of the two who have become one flesh and any children born of their union. Redefining marriage confuses the true purpose and meaning of marriage. An act deliberately ensuring that more children will grow up motherless or fatherless is not an act of love. The Oregon Catholic Conference will continue to uphold the true meaning of marriage and advocate for genuine marriages and families in Oregon, and it urges all people of good will to continue to reject the flawed notion that a pairing of two people of the same gender constitutes a marriage.”
Thus far, Oregon is the 19th state to allow same-sex marriages since the Supreme Court struck down part of a federal law that withheld federal recognition of same-sex unions.
However, the Court stressed in its decision that it was not a ruling on a state’s authority to ban same-sex marriages, leaving this battle to be fought another day.
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