AFER's Ted Olson: The SCOTUS Decision Was The Highlight Of My Life

"It does seem to suggest, if I was a federal judge, I would read today’s decision as saying that the opponents, if they still exist, on the Supreme Court of marriage equality have decided they don’t want to get into this and they sort of feel that the federal judges — one after the other, after the other, after the other — are getting it right and at this point they ought to just leave it alone. We believe, those of us who have been involved in this effort, that the Supreme Court having decided not to overturn or not to even review the decisions of these circuit courts ultimately will grant that same right and that same privilege to people all over the United States. To see the United States Supreme Court recognize in this way the love of these individuals and the happiness that they will soon be able to experience is the highlight of my life.” - Ted Olson, speaking to Metro Weekly.  Olson, with fellow AFER attorney David Boies, represented Timothy Bostic and Tony London in their suit against Virginia.

VIRGINIA: Anti-Gay Clerk Signs Marriage License For Plaintiffs In Bostic Case

Norfolk County Clerk George Schaefer, who was backed by the virulently anti-gay Alliance Defending Freedom all the way to the Supreme Court, today had to suck it and sign the marriage license of AFER plaintiffs Timothy Bostic and Tony London. More photos and coverage are at the Twitter feed of Virginian-Pilot reporter Patrick Wilson.

VIRGINIA: Alliance Defending Freedom Asks SCOTUS To Hear Bostic Case

Acting on behalf of Prince William County Clerk Michele McQuigg, today the Alliance Defending Freedom petitioned SCOTUS to hear their appeal of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that struck down Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage. Today's petitions follow those from AFER and Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. The full request is here. (Via Equality Case Files)

NORTH CAROLINA: Federal Court Stays Marriage Until SCOTUS Rules On Virginia

Yesterday a federal court stayed any further action on North Carolina's same-sex marriage battle until SCOTUS rules on Virginia's Bostic case. According to the order, should SCOTUS decline to hear Virginia's case, the stay will be lifted. Also yesterday AFER followed Virginia AG Mark Herring and the Alliance Defending Freedom in asking SCOTUS to hear Bostic.

The North Carolina ruling is here.

RELATED: Yesterday activists delivered 12,000 petition signatures to North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, asking him to stop defending his state's ban. McCrory is unswayed:

"We're going to let the process work. During that process we ought to have a stay to allow the current law to remain in place, but this is going to the Supreme Court for all the states," said McCrory. State Attorney General Roy Cooper said he'd no longer support the ban in court after the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Virginia's ban unconstitutional. Republican legislative leaders have indicated they may retain outside counsel to represent the state in the existing lawsuits. McCrory said if a court rules the ban unconstitutional, he wants a legal stay put in place pending a final decision. "We should have stay to allow us to implement our current laws up until the Supreme Court decides this."

AFER To SCOTUS: Hear Our Virginia Case

The American Foundation for Equal Rights today filed a SCOTUS brief which demands that the Court hear their Virginia marriage equality suit.

“Forty-seven years ago, Mildred and Richard Loving passionately argued that the Supreme Court must end the unjust laws that dare to tell us who we can and cannot love,” said Plaintiffs’ lead co-counsel Ted Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.  “Today, almost half a century later, it is time thousands of gay and lesbian couples across America are extended that same promise of equality and freedom that the Supreme Court granted to the Lovings. Our plaintiffs have already fought for, in two separate courts, a constitutional promise they have been denied. Now, the Supreme Court must take up the Bostic case, answer once and for all the surpassingly important constitutional question of marriage equality, and rule decisively in favor of the fundamental right to marry for every same-sex couple.” Bostic was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in July 2013 on behalf of two loving Virginia couples—Tim Bostic and Tony London of Norfolk, and Carol Schall and Mary Townley of Richmond—to challenge the constitutionality of Virginia’s marriage laws on the grounds that they violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The same demand has already been filed by Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring and by the Alliance Defending Freedom, acting on behalf of the Norfolk County Clerk.

VIRGINIA: Anti-Gay Norfolk County Clerk Petitions SCOTUS To Hear Marriage Appeal

Via SCOTUSblog:

Arguing that lower federal courts have “subverted” the Supreme Court’s decision last year on same-sex marriage, a Virginia court clerk on Friday filed his own petition – the second filing seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of that state’s ban on such marriages and the fourth on the basic constitutional issue. The filing may complicate the Court’s chances of promptly considering that issue.

The new document was filed by lawyers for George E. Schaefer III, who is the circuit court clerk for the city of Norfolk. He has been taking part in the Virginia case since it began, and he is now defending the ban, after state officials opted not to do so. Already pending at the Court are another petition from Virginia, one from Utah, and one from Oklahoma. Another is expected soon from Virginia, to be filed by a different clerk.

On Wednesday, the Court blocked the issuance of licenses for same-sex marriages in Virginia pending the filing of a petition by the other clerk who is defending the ban, Michele B. McQuigg of Prince William County. Her petition is being prepared now by her lawyers, who may file it within the next week or so.

In the other two Virginia filings, one by the state attorney general and now by the Norfolk clerk, each claimed that it was the proper vehicle for the Court to review the validity of the Virginia ban. But the two are on slightly different procedural timetables within the Court, and that will be true as well for the McQuigg petition when it is filed.

Equality Case Files has the full filing.