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Gay Marriages To Begin In Idaho, After High Court Lifts Stay

Machelle Migneault and her partner, Ms. Smith, embrace after being the first ones to arrive the the recorder's office to attempt to get a same sex marriage license at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, on Friday.
Otto Kitsinger
/
AP
Machelle Migneault and her partner, Ms. Smith, embrace after being the first ones to arrive the the recorder's office to attempt to get a same sex marriage license at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, on Friday.

Another day and another state is gearing up to begin gay marriages.

The Supreme Court on Friday lifted a stay on an appellate court ruling that legalized gay marriage in Idaho.

USA Today reports:

"The order allows a federal appeals court decision issued Tuesday to take effect in Idaho, just as it did in Nevada. Three other states without gay marriage — Arizona, Montana and Alaska — are impacted by the ruling, but state officials there have not yet capitulated.

"Federal judges in other states are moving in the same direction, forced by appeals court rulings the Supreme Court refused to second-guess. On Friday, a judge in North Carolina became the latest to strike down his state's gay marriage ban."

If you remember, the Supreme Court set off this chain reaction when it refused to hear four cases in three circuits in which appellate courts had decided bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional.

The court's order, today, is just one more signal that the Court is disinclined to review appellate cases throwing out state bans on gay marriage.

That may change if an appeals court upholds a state's ban on gay marriage.

For now, as USA Today puts it, the Court has expanded gay marriage to the Far West regions of the United States.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.