Marriage equality supporters are also
asking the Supreme Court to consider whether state gay marriage bans
violate the U.S. Constitution.
Defendants in cases challenging bans in
Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia have asked or plan to ask the Supreme
Court to step in.
On Friday, Virginia Attorney General
Mark Herring asked the high court to hear Bostic v. Rainey.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond on July 28 upheld a
lower court's ruling striking down Virginia's ban as
unconstitutional.
Herring,
who sided with plaintiffs in the case, argued in his filing that the
Supreme Court should take the case because “[t]he question
presented is vital to a large population of same-sex couples, to
their children, and to their fellow Americans who believe that
discriminating against gay people is both unfair and
unconstitutional. They may fairly call this 'the defining civil
rights issue of our time.'”
Herring's
filing arrived a day after lawyers for three couples challenging
Utah's ban said they agree with defendants in the case, who have
asked the Supreme Court to review an appeals court ruling striking
down the ban.
(Related:
Utah
appeals gay marriage case to Supreme Court.)
“Now
is the time for the Supreme Court to bring certainty to this
fundamental civil rights issue of our time,” said Peggy A. Tomsic,
a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Lawyers
for the couples said they would ask the Supreme Court to hear the
case.
It is
unusual for the winning side to urge the justices to review a case
and doing so reflects a fundamental shift among proponents of
marriage equality, who before 2009 stood clear of federal courts.
When the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) filed its case
against California's Proposition 8, many activists warned that a loss
at the Supreme Court could set back the movement decades.
With
mounting victories in dozens of cases filed in the last year,
proponents now appear confident that the high court will rule in
their favor.