SOUTH CAROLINA: Same-Sex Marriage Briefs Are Due Next Thursday

But it will be more than a month later before we could get a ruling. Via The State:

Judge Michelle Childs said Tuesday she will decide later, most likely in November, whether she will hear oral arguments in the ongoing same-sex marriage case that will determine whether bans on same-sex marriage in existing South Carolina law and the state constitution will be overturned. Childs made her statement in a written order filed Tuesday morning in the case in U.S. District Court in Columbia. In the order, Childs set forth the schedule for opposing attorneys in the case to file written briefs and responses. All written briefs from each side must be submitted to her by Oct. 23, she wrote. Childs gave the parties an additional 21 days to file replies. “If the court decides to have a hearing, it will be scheduled no earlier than 14 days after the filing or replies,” Childs wrote. Haley and Wilson are opposing efforts by Katharine Bradacs, who is a S.C. Highway Patrol trooper, and Tracie Goodwin, to gain the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples in South Carolina. Wilson’s office is handling the legal work.

The plaintiffs were married in DC in 2012.