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Same-sex couples in Kansas will be able to begin marrying as soon as today, the Supreme Court ordered Wednesday. The state requested a stay of a lower court's order to strike down its ban on same-sex marriage earlier this week. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees the 10th Circuit, issued a temporary stay, but on Wednesday, seven of the nine justices affirmed that the lower court's ruling would remain intact.
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Arizona is the latest state where gay marriage is legal following an earlier Supreme Court move. Arizona is now the latest state with legalized same-sex marriage after a federal judge on Friday struck down the state's ban on the practice and ordered that his decision take effect immediately.
In a concise four-page decision, U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick cited rulings from higher courts to dismiss Arizona's ban as unconstitutional.
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On Monday, October 6, 2014 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the hotly contested issue of gay marriage, a surprise move that will allow gay men and women to marry in five states where same-sex weddings were previously banned.
By rejecting appeals in cases involving Virginia, Oklahoma, Utah, Wisconsin and Indiana, the court also left intact lower-court rulings that struck down bans in North Carolina, West Virginia, South Carolina, Wyoming, Kansas and Colorado increasing the number of states with gay marriage in the United States from 19 to 30.
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On Tuesday, August 26, 2014 the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals heard two cases challenging same-sex marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin. There was a lot of speculation as to who would be on the three judge panel that would hear the case. Not long before the hearing began, we found out: Judges Ann Claire Williams, David Hamilton and Richard Posner. Williams and Hamilton were Clinton and Obama nominees respectively and were widely thought to be favorable to pro-equality arguments. Judge Posner, a Reagan nominee, was something of a wild-card.
However, during the oral argument before the Seventh Circuit, Judge Richard Posner shredded two states' defenses of their laws excluding gay couples from marriage. Along with the two other judges on the panel, Ann Claire Williams and David Hamilton, he seems poised to strike down the marriage limitations on Equal Protection grounds. But Posner was the most tenacious and trenchant in his questioning of the states' lawyers, and was frequently amused by what he was hearing from the states. Overnight, he's become a hero of the gay-marriage movement.
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A federal judge on Thursday, August 21, 2014 declared Florida's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, joining state judges in four counties who have sided with gay couples wishing to tie the knot. U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle in Tallahassee ruled that the ban added to Florida's constitution by voters in 2008 violates the 14th Amendment's guarantees of equal protection and due process.
Hinkle issued a stay delaying the effect of his order, meaning no marriage licenses will be immediately issued for gay couples.
