Editorial: Supreme Court should take firm stance on gay marriage

The U.S. Supreme Court couldn’t muster enough interest – or courage – to take on the gay marriage issue once and for all, but a single associate justice has temporarily preserved Idaho’s prohibition.

We need a high court that’s all in or all out. The middle ground is untenable.

To recap, the court announced Monday that it would not review the decisions of three appeals courts that struck down gay marriage bans in five states. This signaled that the remaining prohibitions in states covered by the 4th, 7th and 10th circuits were likely doomed.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals zapped Idaho and Nevada bans. But Idaho Gov. Butch Otter and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden requested a stay of the ruling, and on Wednesday Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy granted it. A few hours later, he clarified that the stay applied only to Idaho because Nevada didn’t request one.

As a result, same-sex couples that had gleefully lined up at Idaho courthouses were turned away.

Otter issued a pronouncement that he was fulfilling his constitutional duty in challenging the circuit court ruling. He claimed it could do “irreparable harm.” He made it sound as if he had no choice. But he did.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, a proponent of his state’s ban, made the realistic calculation that same-sex marriages will be a reality. He’ll waste no more taxpayer dollars on fruitless challenges. Republican governors in New Mexico, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have also seen the light. Idaho gubernatorial candidates A.J. Balukoff, a Democrat, and John Bujak, a Libertarian, ripped Otter’s decision to continue wasting money.

Idaho’s leaders should stop making their insulting legal arguments and begin considering the impact on same-sex couples.

As Circuit Court Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote, “preventing same-sex couples from marrying and refusing to recognize same-sex marriages celebrated elsewhere, impose profound legal, financial, social and psychic harms on numerous citizens of those states.” Then he took direct aim at Idaho’s claim that traditional marriage would be devalued and out-of-wedlock births would flourish: “This proposition reflects a crass and callous view of parental love and the parental bond that is not worthy of response.”

That view isn’t going to change if Idaho is granted its wish: a review by 9th Circuit’s entire 11-judge panel.

Not to be left out, Rep. Raul Labrador promised to introduce a bill in Congress called the Marriage and Religious Freedom Act that would “prohibit adverse actions by the IRS or other federal agencies based on a person or a group’s views on marriage,” according to a news release.

So marriage-ban proponents already see themselves as the victims. If only legislators extended the same consideration to citizens who have been discriminated against as a matter of state law. The Legislature won’t even grant them a hearing.

Unlike Nevada, Idaho lost its last chance to regain some dignity. The final defeat can’t come soon enough.