The Supreme Court's Decisive Indecision
By inaction, it effectively legalizes gay marriage in most of the U.S.
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The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Oct. 6 to review seven appeals of same-sex marriage rulings by lower courts. The practical effect is that such marriages may proceed in Virginia and Wisconsin as well as in the less socially liberal environs of Indiana, Oklahoma, and Utah. Six other states—Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming—fall under the jurisdiction of the three appellate courts whose rulings now stand uncontested.
In a previous ruling, without affirmatively asserting that gay marriage is a constitutional right, the court struck down a federal law that denied benefits to same-sex married couples.