SALT LAKE CITY — On Wednesday, the Utah attorney general asked the U.S. Supreme Court to place an emergency stay on last month’s federal appeals court decision that ruled the state’s ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional, according to the Denver Post.
A stay was already placed on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision pending the Supreme Court to weigh in.
This temporary stay is slated to expire 8 a.m. Monday.
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes filed the motion and directed the application to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the newspaper reported.
Reyes also requested Sotomayor place a stay on another ruling by U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball.
Kimball had ordered Utah to recognize gay marriages that took place during the brief period they were legal in May.
“That petition will give this Court an opportunity to determine whether the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the people of a state from defining marriage as between one man and one woman,” the motion said. “That decision will also likely dictate the outcome in this case: If Utah’s laws are struck down, Utah will recognize Plaintiffs’ interim marriages; if Utah’s laws are upheld, Utah will do everything possible to comply with them.”
In Colorado, the fight for same-sex marriages continues to heat up.
On Monday, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers asked the Colorado Supreme Court to stop county clerks from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
“The underlying question of whether our laws will stand or fall is now in the Colorado Supreme Court’s hands, and we hope it or the U.S. Supreme Court will resolve the question expeditiously,” Suthers said in a statement. “We have sought to bring resolution to these issues as quickly as possible, and this is another important step in doing so.”
This followed an Adams County judge ruling that the state’s voter-approved ban is unconstitutional.