The past month has been a rollercoaster for Utah. On December 20th 2013, Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage was deemed unconstitutional by district judge Robert J. Shelby. As a result, over one thousand same-sex couples received marriage licenses in Utah.
On January 6th, the Supreme Court put the marriages on hold. To top it all off, just three days later, the U.S. Attorney General said that the federal government would recognize those marriages.
When Shelby, a person considered a hero in advancing LGBT interests, lifted Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages, about 1,300 couples rushed to court houses and waited in lines for hours to tie the knot. However, the status of their marriages was put into question when the Supreme Court halted their marriages.
It is not surprising that Shelby’s decision led to widespread public opposition in a state where 66% of the population voted for Amendment 3, an amendment that defined marriage in Utah as a union between a man and a woman. When Shelby’s decision was initiated there was barely time for newlywed gay couples to honeymoon because the state filed for an appeal to the Supreme Court to end the marriages, which was granted.
But then, the country’s legal adviser, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, made a statement in regards to the Supreme Court decision.
“The marriages will be recognized as lawful and considered eligible for all relevant federal benefits on the same terms as other same-sex marriages,” he said in a statement posted on the Justice Departments website.
A sense of ambiguity arises from the fact that the federal government will be the one to acknowledge these marriages, especially since marriage licensing is something generally left to the individual states and the case is not fully litigated yet. The appeal Utah wanted will be granted in the spring/summer in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
Same-sex couples are in a state of marital purgatory; what the 10th circuit will decide is not certain, but with United States vs. Windsor on their side, Utah may not win this appeal.
The United States vs. Windsor case in the Supreme Court declared Section 3 of the defense of marriage act unconstitutional. This ruling allowed legally married same-sex couples to receive the same federal protections granted to heterosexual couples. It was this case that made Judge Shelby inclined to initiate the thousands of marriages in the first place. It is likely that the 10th circuit will follow the same logic.
A poll conducted by SurveyUSA showed that Utahans are currently at a stalemate in regards to same-sex marriage, with 48% of citizens on each side. It is clear that LGBT rights activists are going to have to work hard to keep the ‘red’ state on the list of states that allow same-sex marriage.
