North Carolina Lawmakers ask Supreme Court to Intervene in Gay Marriage Before 4th Circuit

Procrustes Stretched

And you say, "Oh my God, am I here all alone?"
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North Carolina Lawmakers ask Supreme Court to Intervene in Gay Marriage Before 4th Circuit Ruling Comes Down - January 14, 2015 | by Chris Johnson

Interesting strategy, but will it work?

The petition is an unusual move because the federal appeals court considering the lawsuit, in this case the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, has yet to issue a decision on lawmakers’ appeal of the marriage ruling.

But lawmakers argue that Supreme Court review of the North Carolina case at this stage is warranted because the Fourth Circuit already erred in its decision against Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage by ignoring the 1972 decision of Baker v. Nelson, a marriage equality case the Supreme Court refused to hear for lack of federal question.

“[T]he Fourth Circuit’s decision in Bostic, which the district court in the cases ‘sub judice’ treated as binding precedent, declined to follow this Court’s own binding precedent in Baker v. Nelson, rejected this Court’s methodology for determining the existence of new fundamental rights, and then, having found a fundamental right to same-sex marriage, held that the civilizationally important interests of the State were either not compelling enough or not furthered by sufficiently narrowly-tailored state marriage laws to meet the stringent requirements of strict scrutiny,” the filing states.​
 

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