The United States Supreme Court has refused to hear cases from five states which were seeking to retain their legislative bans on same-sex marriage. State leaders from Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin have appealed decisions of lower courts which had struck down those bans. The Supreme Court refused to hear any case on same-sex marriage before it and also lifted orders which had delayed marriages while the issue was under appeal.
It is reported that this could lead to thirty states in total permitting same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage is already legal in 19 US States and the District of Columbia. The refusal to hear the appeal means that the five states taking the appeal cannot refuse applications for same-sex marriages and it leads the way to same-sex couples applying for marriage across the country, including six other states with similar bans in place.
The refusal to hear the cases has been referred to as a ‘tacit victory’ for same-sex marriage, and was a surprise to many. Proponents and opponents of marriage equality had been advocating for the cases to be heard in order to rule definitively on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage in a manner which would have affected all fifty states. The Supreme Court justices offered no explanation of why they are not yet ready to resolve the issue. However advocates hope to have a definitive ruling within the next two years.
Click here to read SCOTUSblog analysis of the case.
Meanwhile in Geneva, on 24 September 2014, Ireland was one of the 25 countries of the UN Human Rights Council which voted to adopt a resolution on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity. The resolution was passed with 14 countries voting against and seven abstaining. It expresses the Council’s ‘grave concern’ over acts of violence and discrimination being committed all over the world against individuals as a result of their sexual orientation and gender identity. It calls on the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to update a report of 2011 which documented discriminatory law and practices as well as acts of violence on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, highlighted international human rights standards and obligations and made recommendations as how those protections can be used effectively.
This resolution comes just one month after the University of Limerick launched its study A Life Free From Fear – Legislating for Hate Crime in Ireland: An NGO Perspective, the foreword of which highlights that Ireland is in fact a European and even Western “anomaly” in its absence of hate crime legislation.