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The US supreme court will review seven same-sex marriage petitions at the end of the month, according to docket filings updated on Wednesday.
This private review on 29 September will help determine which, if any, of the same-sex marriage cases the court will hear oral arguments on in the term which begins in October.
Dozens of same-sex marriage cases have trickled through lower courts since the supreme court overturned part of the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma). The seven petitions represent five cases in as many states.
States, corporations and religious groups have filed briefs asking the nation’s highest court to weigh in on the two central issues raised by these cases: whether a state can ban same-sex marriage in its own state and whether a state must then recognize same-sex marriages performed lawfully out of state.
Legal experts say the court could be pushed to accept a case if a circuit court breaks the streak of rulings declaring state bans on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional.
The justices can postpone their decision on these cases and relist the petitions at other court meetings held between September and December. These are the cases up for supreme court review:
Utah: Kitchen v Herbert
The 10th circuit court of appeals became the first federal appeals court to rule that same-sex marriage is constitutionally protected in a 25 June decision. The decision upheld a December 2013 lower court ruling that prompted about 1,300 same-sex marriages in the state, though the validity of those marriages is in question because of a stay on the 10th circuit’s ruling.
Virginia: Rainey v Bostic
The court is set to review three petitions from Virginia cases. There are three petitions coming from the state because two county clerks and the state attorney general filed separate petitions.
The fourth circuit court of appeals ruled on 28 July that the state’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional. The court refused to grant a stay on the ruling, but the supreme court intervened in August and granted a stay the day before same-sex couples were going to be able to marry in the state.
Oklahoma: Smith v Bishop
The 10th circuit court of appeals said on 18 July that the state must permit same-sex marriage. The court immediately stayed the decision, which upheld a 14 January ruling by a district judge. The case was filed in November 2004, making it the oldest in the bunch.
Indiana: Bogan v Baskin
The seventh circuit court of appeals unanimously decided the state’s same-sex marriage ban, and the ban in Wisconsin, are unconstitutional on 4 September. Five days later, both states separately asked the supreme court to decide whether same-sex marriage is legal in every state. Hundreds of couples married in the state after a district court ruled on 25 June that the state ban is unconstitutional.
Wisconsin: Walker v Wolf
Like Indiana, hundreds of same-sex couples married in Wisconsin married after a 6 June district court decision ruling that said the state’s ban is unconstitutional. The federal judge who made the ruling granted a stay a week later, preventing more people from marrying in the state.
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