WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) - Two big cases addressing
marriage rights for gays and lesbians are on track to reach the
U.S. Supreme Court as soon as this year, keeping the focus on an
issue President Barack Obama reignited with his endorsement this
week.
The cases, originating on opposite U.S. coasts, go to the
heart of a question that has churned for two decades: whether
states and the federal government may refuse to recognize
same-sex marriage.
How the high court would rule is impossible to know. In the
court's most recent gay-rights case, the justices in 2003 struck
down state anti-sodomy laws as an improper intrusion on private
activity.
Lawyers for California same-sex couples are urging the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to end its involvement,
which would clear the way for a request for the Supreme Court to
settle the issue.
Each day the government does not recognize the couples "is a
day that can never be returned to them," lawyer Ted Olson wrote
in a court filing in March.
Obama got both sides of the marriage debate fired up on
Wednesday when he said he believes gays and lesbians should be
able to marry. The comments to ABC News completed the
president's self-described evolution on the subject and thrust
the issue into his 2012 re-election campaign.
The California case tests whether the state's same-sex
marriage ban, which voters approved in 2008 after 18,000
same-sex couples had obtained marriage licenses, violates
due-process and equal-protection rights.
After a three-judge panel ruled for gay marriage in the 9th
Circuit in February, backers of the ban asked that an 11-judge
panel rehear the case. Should the court refuse, the backers are
expected to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for
Marriage, a group that opposes same-sex marriage, struck a
confident note in an interview. Lawyers for gays and lesbians,
he said, need to prove that "our entire common law history going
back to England was wrong."
The second major case is from Massachusetts, where gays and
lesbians can legally marry but are ineligible for the federal
benefits of marriage.
Seventeen married or widowed men and women suing for
benefits won a 2010 ruling that is now on appeal. A decision is
likely in the next several months from the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the 1st Circuit, with the high court a possible next step.
Other cases in earlier stages are challenging laws that
restrict same-sex relationships. A New York widow is suing over
the tax treatment of her late wife's estate. The two were
married in Canada in 2007.
Mary Bonauto, a lawyer for the Massachusetts plaintiffs,
said it was hard to gauge how Obama's support for same-sex
marriage might affect legal proceedings. "When you have the
conversation, then you have the opportunity to change
discriminatory laws," said Bonauto, director of the civil rights
project for the legal group GLAD.
(Reporting by David Ingram)
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