LGBT Groups Tangle Over Which One Will Bring Marriage Fight Back To SCOTUS

Chris Geidner reports at Buzzfeed:

The fight to win marriage equality across the nation has in recent months become nearly as much a fight about which lawyers and organizations will get to be the ones making the arguments before the Supreme Court — and taking credit for a win. Now, that fight is breaking out into the open. On Wednesday, Lambda Legal and the ACLU, along with Jenner & Block partner Paul Smith, asked the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to allow them to intervene in the ongoing appeal of the challenge to Virginia’s ban on same-sex couples’ marriages.

The case, which resulted in a win earlier this month for same-sex couples backed by the American Foundation for Equal Rights, and in which the couples are represented by Ted Olson and David Boies, is on appeal. Now, Lambda Legal, the ACLU and Smith want to join the appeal on behalf of the couples and class they represent in a second marriage challenge that is moving more slowly through a different federal trial court in Virginia. As Lambda Legal and ACLU lawyers and Smith note in Wednesday’s request to the 4th Circuit, “counsel for the [AFER-represented plaintiffs] indicated they do not consent” to their intervention.

Geidner notes that a similar battle has taken place in the Utah case, in which the National Center for Lesbian Rights has been granted permission to intervene.