Maybe There Is Hope

Today, the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by opponents of marriage equality to put the decision up for public vote in D.C., which was the 6th jurisdiction in the U.S. to permit same-sex marriages after it passed the Religious Freedom and Marriage Equality Act of 2009.

The Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari today leaves standing a D.C. Court of Appeals decision issued last October that determined the Council acted within its authority when more than thirty years ago it established a requirement that proposed ballot initiatives may not authorize, or have the effect of authorizing, discrimination prohibited by the D.C. Human Rights Act. The Court further held that an initiative on same-sex marriage would impermissibly permit discrimination against gays and lesbians in the District.

With today’s decision from the Supreme Court, marriage equality opponents have reached the end of their legal wrangling. The D.C. Board of Elections, Superior Court, Court of Appeals and now the U.S. Supreme Court have rejected their meritless and tired arguments that they should be permitted to impose a discriminatory ballot measure on D.C. voters.