SCOTUS Refuses To Ban Gay Marriage In Oregon

In a show of good common sense, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to ban gay marriage in Oregon Wednesday evening, rejecting a request made by the National Organization for Marriage. "The application for stay presented to Justice Kennedy and by him referred to the Court is denied," the court wrote flatly, not even deigning to give a reason for its decision (because, does it have to?).

Two weeks ago, Oregon took a major step forward when a federal judge struck down the state's gay marriage ban, making Oregon the 18th state to legalize gay marriage. Unlike many other states, whose ban decisions were almost immediately appealed, Oregon’s attorney general didn’t defend the law and chose not to appeal the ruing.

Which is when NOM stepped in: “[T]his case involves not just a refusal by the federal government to accept a State’s definition of marriage, but an outright abrogation of such a definition—by a single federal judge wielding a federal injunction in a non-adversarial proceeding,” NOM's lawyers argued in their appeal, according to BuzzFeed. Wednesday's one-sentence Supreme Court order came in response to this effort by the National Organization for Marriage hoping to block the state's same-sex marriages while it looked for legal ways to challenge the May 19 decision.

Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum made the following statement after Wednesday's ruling:

Today's ruling, which, notably, came from the full United States Supreme Court, allows the celebrations of marriages of same-sex couples in Oregon to continue without interruption while NOM pursues its motion to intervene at the appellate level (in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals). I am confident that the federal district court's ruling denying NOM's "last minute" motion to intervene will be upheld, as will Judge McShane's historic decision overturning Oregon's ban on same-sex marriage on the ground that it denies same-sex couples equal protection under the United States Constitution.

NOM, which questions whether same-sex couples really are "just like you" (and suggests that, on the contrary, "same-sex male couples are dramatically more likely to be unfaithful than heterosexual couples") will not be giving up its fight so easily, though. Said the group in a statement:

We are disappointed that the US Supreme Court has declined to issue a stay of a federal judge's order redefining marriage in Oregon ... We will continue to press this case because we believe that the people of Oregon are entitled to a vigorous defense of marriage, and because it is in the public interest to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Yah, alright. Good luck with that, NOM.