Supreme Court to Conference Same-Sex Marriage Cases

SCOTUSBlog's Lyle Denniston reports that the Supreme Court will look at the same-sex marriage cases in which governmental officials are seeking to have their bans on same-sex nuptials restored. The court will have a conference on the cases September 29, Denniston reports: "Together, the petitions raise two constitutional questions:  do states have power to refuse to allow same-sex couples to marry, and do states have power to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states?  In all of the federal appeals courts’ decisions being challenged in these cases, state marriage bans of one or both of those kinds were struck down under the federal Constitution, either under equal protection or due process guarantees, or both." Some of the cases also asks the justices to specify a standard for scrutinizing the constitutionality of laws that implicate LGBT rights, Denniston adds.