Alaska, Arizona gays win marriage rights; Wyoming next?

WASHINGTON -- Add Alaska and Arizona to the growing list of same-sex marriage states, now numbering 31. And Wyoming soon could be #32.

In one of the unlikeliest days for the gay marriage movement:

• The Supreme Court turned down Alaska's request Friday to block gays and lesbians from marrying.

• A federal district judge struck down Arizona's ban, and the state attorney general said appealing would "waste the taxpayer's money."

• Another federal district judge set the clock running toward gay marriage in Wyoming next week.

The three states thus become the latest dominoes to fall following a series of federal appeals court rulings striking down same-sex marriage bans -- rulings that the Supreme Court refused to second-guess.

There are now 31 states where gays and lesbians can wed, up from 19 less than two weeks ago. Three others in addition to Wyoming -- Kansas, Montana and South Carolina -- are bound by the geographic reach of the appeals courts that have ruled. And four more -- Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee -- await an appeals court ruling that could come any day.

As a result of the Supreme Court's latest 17-word order, same-sex marriage now stretches from Maine to Alaska. Only seven states remain in which lower courts have not started the ball rolling by striking down gay marriage bans: Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska and the Dakotas.

After deciding earlier this month not to hear appeals from Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana or Wisconsin, the Supreme Court appears unlikely to consider a gay marriage case unless a federal appeals court splits from those that have ruled thus far and upholds state laws or constitutional amendments.

That could happen, either in the 6th Circuit appeals court based in Ohio, or in any of three other appeals courts where rulings eventually will be issued -- including two from the South, where more conservative judicial panels might uphold bans.

Same-sex marriage has received a near-perfect string of court victories since June 2013, when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the federal government must recognize gay marriages performed in states where it is legal. The court's reasoning in that case prompted nearly all federal district and appeals courts to strike down bans in other states. Only a Louisiana federal district judge has bucked the trend.

The Arizona opinion issued Friday by District Judge John Sedwick explains what has happened, or soon will, in a number of other states: Appeals courts rule against gay marriage; other states are bound by those decisions; further petitions to the same appeals court would stand no chance; and "the high court will turn a deaf ear" on the matter.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said it would be "an exercise in futility" to appeal Sedwick's decision, a capitulation which sent gay and lesbian couples racing to county clerk's offices for marriage licenses.

"The probability of persuading the 9th Circuit to reverse today's decision is zero. The probability of the United States Supreme Court accepting review of the 9th Circuit decision is also zero," Horne said. "Therefore, the only purpose to be served by filing another appeal would be to waste the taxpayer's money. That is not a good conservative principle."

That same reasoning didn't stop Alaska state officials from trying. Their Supreme Court petition sought to block same-sex marriages from beginning Friday morning, as ordered by a federal district judge.

"The issue presented in this case is of overriding national importance," the state argued in its brief. Since last year's Supreme Court rulings, it said, "the urgency of the issue has grown by orders of magnitude."

The high court's inclination in the Alaska appeal was obvious, however. Unlike last week in a similar case from Idaho, Justice Anthony Kennedy did not even ask for a response from same-sex marriage proponents before forwarding the state's petition to his colleagues for a decision.