No news yet from Supreme Court on marriage cases

U.S. Supreme Court (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The U.S. Supreme Court still hasn’t announced whether it will consider lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act.

On Friday, justices held a conference to determine whether to take up Hollingsworth v. Perry, the case challenging Prop 8, and some combination of the four lawsuits challenging DOMA before the court. According to a court order, published by the court on the same day, the court decided at the conference to take up two cases, but they’re unrelated to marriage.

News that no action was announced on the marriage cases was first reported by SCOTUSblog. In a tweet sent out shortly thereafter, SCOTUSblog speculates justices didn’t take action because they want more time to decide:

Failure to act on #ssm today prob means #scotus needs time to work out which case(s) to take. Meet again next Fri.

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) November 30, 2012

It’s possible that more information could be known on Monday when the court publishes an order list for cases it has decided not to take up. If not then, the next possible time the court can make a decision on whether to take up the cases is the next conference set for Dec. 7.

Advocates are hoping that the court will decide against taking up the Prop 8 case because that means the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling striking down the measure will be upheld and same-sex marriage will return to California.

In addition to the marriage cases, the Supreme Court was set to consider whether it will take up another LGBT-related case: Brewer v. Diaz. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s (R) appealed to justices an injunction prohibiting her from enforcing a law that took away domestic partner benefits from state employees. No action was apparently taken on this case either.