The Supreme Court said on Friday that it will finally take on the same-sex marriage debate by hearing four cases from Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Michigan.
According to SCOTUSBlog, the Court will likely hear the issue in April, but a decision will not be released until late June. The Court will have to finally decide if same-sex couples do have a constitutional right to get married.
The four cases will be heard together, after the Court had to take them thanks to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upholding the states’ same-sex marriage bans. However, same-sex marriage is allowed in 36 states, including Florida. It is still banned in Michigan Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and 10 others. Seventy percent of Americans live in states that now allow same-sex marriage.
As USA Today notes, the Court had an opportunity to make a decision in October, but ultimately decided to let appeals court rulings that ended bans in Utah, Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma and Virginia stand.
While the Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned same-sex couples from being recognized at the federal level, in June 2013, the Court did not make a definitive ruling on California’s Proposition 8.