The movement for marriage equality has made a lot of progress in the last few years. Currently 36 states (with 70% of the nation's population) allow same-sex couples to legally marry. Fourteen other states (with 30% of the population) still enforce a ban on same-sex marriages.
This is a question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution applies to all citizens, or excludes the LGBT community. Because marriage is a right in all 50 states -- but it is a right that is still denied to same-sex couples in some states. The Supreme Court has been dodging this issue for years now. I think they were hoping the issue would be settled in the appeals courts, so they wouldn't have to make a decision.
But it hasn't worked out that way. The 4th, 7th, 9th, and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeal hold that the state bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. But the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals (covering Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee) disagreed -- ruling that the state bans were constitutional. Cases are still pending in other courts (like the 5th and 8th Circuit Courts of Appeals).
This creates an untenable situation. A situation where the same right is constitutional in some states and unconstitutional in many others. And it makes a joke of the Constitution, which guarantees equal rights under the law to all citizens.
Some religious fundamentalists claim the right to marry is one that should be left up to the individual states. Unfortunately for them, the Supreme Court has already shot down that idea. In the past, some states prohibited interracial marriage, while other states permitted it (setting up this same kind of constitutional/unconstitutional predicament). The matter was settled in 1967, when the Supreme Court ruled that race-based marriage restrictions were unconstitutional in all states (Loving vs. Virginia).
Thanks to the differing opinions rendered in the appeals court (6th vs. 4th, 7th, 9th, & 10th), it now falls to the United States Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of state same-sex marriage bans -- and on Friday they announced they will do that in this term. They have accepted four cases (from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, & Tennessee -- all in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals area of jurisdiction) -- and will probably hear arguments on those cases in April, and render a decision in June.
It looks like this long march for equal rights will finally come to an end. Most observers expect the Court to decide in a 5 to 4 decision that the bans are unconstitutional. Personally, I am hoping for a 6to3, or even a 7 to 2, split on the decision (Scalia and Thomas are hopeless right-wingers who don't accept the idea of equality). But I will happily accept any split that ensures equality for the LGBT community.
All that's left now is to cross our fingers and wait until summer. The map below shows the current division (with the white areas still enforcing bans). Hopefully, there will be no white states after this summer.
