The Supreme Court yesterday rejected a challenge to the only state that allows same-sex marriages, declining to hear an appeal aimed at overturning the Massachusetts law that prompted a national debate on the legality and morality of such unions.
The decision ended the legal fight over a 4 to 3 Massachusetts high court ruling last November giving gay couples the right to marry. But both sides say the U.S. Supreme Court's unwillingness to intervene means there will be more fights in courts and legislatures across the country.
Liberty Counsel, the Florida-based group that filed the challenge to the Massachusetts law, argued that the state Supreme Court ruling violated the U.S. Constitution because state judges had made a decision more properly decided by elected legislatures.
The high court rejected the appeal without comment.
Liberty Counsel is continuing the fight elsewhere, lobbying more than two dozen states to pass state amendments banning same-sex marriage.
