TEXAS: Plaintiffs Demand Immediate Marriage Rights During Appeals Process
The Court should immediately lift the stay because the Supreme Court’s actions following entry of the stay no longer support its continuance. The Supreme Court denied certiorari in appeals from the Fourth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits’ decisions finding that state laws banning same-sex marriage were unconstitutional. The denial of certiorari dissolved the stays in place over those cases. Since then, the Supreme Court denied requests for stays (or actually lifted stays) in other cases. While these cert denials concededly do not have legal significance, the constitutional environment in which the Court initially entered the stay have now changed radically and permanently. Fully two-thirds of citizens of the United States now have an enforceable federal constitutional right to marry the person of their choice, irrespective of gender. More importantly, the unconstitutional state laws that restrict same-sex marriage continue to cause direct and immediate harm to Plaintiffs during the pendency of this Court’s stay. First, Plaintiff Dimetman is pregnant with her and Plaintiff De Leon’s second child. If Dimetman does not survive childbirth, De Leon will have no legal right to have access to their unborn child. And, assuming all goes well at the baby’s birth, Section 32’s continued enforcement will force De Leon and Dimetman to incur the uncertainty and cost required for De Leon to adopt their child.Read the full brief at Equality Case Files.
Labels: Fifth Circuit Court, marriage equality, Texas
