June 4th, 2014
In April Federal Judge Michael McShane was presented with testimony as to why the State of Oregon’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages was in violation of the US Constitution. The state chose not to defend the law and agreed that the law was unconstitutional, leaving no defenders of the ban.
At the last moment, the National Organization for Marriage sought to intervene in the case in support of the ban. Judge McShane found that they had no standing to intervene. He subsequently found that the law was in violation of the US Constitution and opened the state to same sex marriages.
NOM has appealed the decision rejecting standing to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. They also requested that the Ninth Circuit stay McShane’s ruling until they could argue as to why they should have had standing. The Ninth declined.
Then NOM appealed the Ninth’s decision on stay to the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Kennedy, who handles such matters for the Ninth Circuit requested that each side submit briefs. Buzzfeed
Kennedy, who hears procedural matters brought to the court from the 9th Circuit, referred the request to the full court, which denied the request without comment on Tuesday.
NOM’s appeal of the denial to intervene is the only matter left pending in the case because Oregon state officials had not fought the lawsuit, having agreed with the plaintiffs that the ban is unconstitutional They had said that they would not appeal the decision if U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane struck down the ban.
Of course you cannot extrapolate from a commentless denial, but it would seem to be that if SCOTUS sees no need to stay it is because they see little likelihood that NOM will prevail in their petition to be heard.
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Hyhybt
June 4th, 2014
About all it means is that the Supreme Court hasn’t changed its mind on the standing issue since the Prop 8 case less than a year ago. The question is why NOM would think they might have.
esurience
June 4th, 2014
NOM probably doesn’t, but they need to appear to be at least trying to do useful things if they want the money to keep coming in.
Nathaniel
June 9th, 2014
I read this today:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/06/06/the_national_organization_for_marriage_is_doomed_to_collapse.html
esurience might have a really good point – not only does NOM need to appear to be doing something about all these court cases killing its offspring legislation, it must also distract donors from its own legal woes. In the case of the latter, a denial is as good as a win, since it can be played up to a whining screech too loud to ignore, at the expense, of course, of the real stories about the organization.
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