For at least an hour today, county clerks in Utah will be issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples.
Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert filed seeking an Emergency Motion for Temporary Stay following a federal judge’s ruling that struck down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage, and on Sunday the United States Court of Appeals Tenth District denied the motion.
According to court documents, “The Defendants-Appellants ask this court to stay the district court’s order pending the district court’s ruling on a motion for stay pending appeal that is currently pending in that court.”
According to the documents, the filing for an Emergency Motion for Temporary Stay did not address nor satisfy the factors that must be established to be entitled to a stay pending an appeal. The denial is without prejudice if the defendants-appellants file a motion for stay pending appeal that complies with regulations.
Click here for the full document: Emergency Motion to Stay denied
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby has scheduled a hearing Monday at 9 a.m. on the state’s request to halt same-sex marriages, and pro same-sex marriage groups in Utah encouraged people to take advantage of the limited window in which marriage licenses were guaranteed to be granted in several counties.
In a post on their Facebook page, Equality Utah said, “Worst case scenario we will only have 1 hour in which marriages can be performed by the respective county clerks.”
Here’s that Facebook post. If it were me and my intended, I’d seriously consider camping out the night before to make sure we were first in line. This is a big deal for two reasons. One, even if an injunction on further marriage licenses is given, the fact is that some number of couples will tie the knot while the issue is being decided. These lucky folks will get to live as legally married couples in Utah at least until the appeal is settled, if not longer than that. It will be a lot harder to take that away from them down the line, because – and this is reason #2 – the world will not have ended in the interim. Utah will continue to be Utah, life will go on, and no one will be harmed in any way by the marriages that take place today. And then in February, when the federal lawsuit in Texas has its first hearing, the plaintiffs can point to Utah and say “See? We’re just like them and we deserve the same treatment.” Even the Fifth Circuit might have a hard time coming up with a justification to maintain the harmful and discriminatory status quo. Via TPM.