High Court Avoids Gay Issue

(CBS/AP)  The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday not to take up a challenge by conservative groups to the Massachusetts law sanctioning same-sex marriages.

Justices had been asked to overturn the year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage. The court declined without comment.

In the past year, at least 3,000 gay Massachusetts couples have wed, although voters may have a chance next year to change the state constitution to permit civil union benefits to same-sex couples, but not the institution of marriage.

"This is not a ruling on the merits, this is not an endorsement of gay marriage," said CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen. "It's a timing issue. The Supreme Court doesn't want to get involved until lower courts have spoken."

Activists on both sides of the gay marriage issue say they're not surprised the Supreme Court isn't getting involved.

Gary Buseck, legal director of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, says conservatives used a "Hail Mary pass" to try to stop gay marriage in Massachusetts. He calls their argument "arcane'' and "desperate."

But those who say they want to "protect" marriage from same-sex couples say they're shifting focus to a constitutional amendment. Carrie Gordon Earll, with Focus on the Family, says this year's election results show Americans are overwhelmingly against gay marriage. She says "one man and one woman" is what's "best for everyone."

Critics of the November 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts argue that it violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state. They lost at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, had told justices in court papers that the people who filed the suit have not shown they suffered an injury and could not bring a challenge to the Supreme Court. "Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not constitute an actual injury," she said.

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly told justices that voters can overrule the Supreme Court by adopting a constitutional amendment.

The lawsuit was filed by the Florida-based Liberty Counsel on behalf of Robert Largess, the vice president of the Catholic Action League, and 11 state lawmakers.

The conservative law group had persuaded the Supreme Court in October to consider another high profile issue, the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on government property. The court agreed to look at that church-state issue before Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

He is working from home while receiving chemotherapy and radiation and will miss court sessions for the next two weeks.

State legislators will decide whether to put the issue before Massachusetts voters in November 2006. Voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage in November elections. President Bush has promised to make a federal ban a priority of his second term.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court narrowly ruled that gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed.

The nation's high court had stayed out of the Massachusetts fight on a previous occasion. Last May, justices refused to intervene and block clerks from issuing the first marriage licenses.

The case is Largess v. Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Massachusetts, 04-420.