Federal judge overturns Utah's ban on gay marriage

[_Abyssinia]

.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155

To form a real marriage, a couple needs to establish and live out the kind of union that would be completed by, and be apt for, procreation and child‐rearing. Since any true and honorable harmony between two people has value in itself (not merely as a means), each such comprehensive union of two people – each permanent, exclusive commitment sealed by organic bodily union – certainly does as well.

Any act of organic bodily union can seal a marriage, whether or not it causes conception. The nature of the spouses’ action now cannot depend on what happens hours later independently of their control – whether a sperm cell in fact penetrates an ovum. And because the union in question is an organic bodily union, it cannot depend for its reality on psychological factors. It does not matter, then, if spouses do not intend to have children or believe that they cannot. Whatever their thoughts or goals, whether a couple achieves bodily union depends on facts about what is happening between their bodies.

It is clear that the bodies of an infertile couple can unite organically through coitus. Consider digestion, the individual body’s process of nourishment. Different parts of that process – salivation, chewing, swallowing, stomach action, intestinal absorption of nutrients – are each in their own way oriented to the broader goal of nourishing the organism. But our salivation, chewing, swallowing, and stomach action remain oriented to that goal (and remain digestive acts) even if on some occasion our intestines do not or cannot finally absorb nutrients, and even if we know so before we eat.

Similarly, the behavioral parts of the process of reproduction do not lose their dynamism toward reproduction if non‐behavioral factors in the process – for example, low sperm count or ovarian problems – prevent conception from occurring, even if the spouses expect this beforehand. As we have argued, bodies coordinating toward a single biological function for which each alone is not sufficient are rightly said to form an organic union.

Thus, infertility is no impediment to bodily union and therefore (as our law has always recognized) no impediment to marriage. This is because in truth marriage is not a mere means, even to the great good of procreation. It is an end in itself, worthwhile for its own sake. So it can exist apart from children, and the state can recognize it in such cases without distorting the moral truth about marriage.

Of course, a true friendship of two men or two women is also valuable in itself. But lacking the capacity for organic bodily union, it cannot be valuable specifically as a marriage: it cannot be the comprehensive union on which aptness for procreation and distinctively marital norms depend. That is why only a man and a woman can form a marriage – a union whose norms and obligations are decisively shaped by its essential dynamism toward children. For that dynamism comes not from the actual or expected presence of children, which some same‐sex partners and even cohabiting brothers could have, and some opposite‐sex couples lack, but from the way that marriage is sealed or consummated: in coitus, which is organic bodily union.

1. Still in the Public Interest

Someone might grant the principled point that infertility is not an impediment to marriage, and still wonder what public benefit a marriage that cannot produce children would have. Why, in other words, should we legally recognize an infertile marriage?

Practically speaking, many couples believed to be infertile end up having children, who would be served by their parents’ healthy marriage; and in any case, the effort to determine fertility would require unjust invasions of privacy. This is a concern presumably shared by revisionists, who would not, for example, require interviews for ascertaining partners’ level of affection before granting them a marriage license.

More generally, even an obviously infertile couple – no less than childless newlyweds or parents of grown children – can live out the features and norms of real marriage and thereby contribute to a healthy marriage culture. They can set a good example for others and help to teach the next generation what marriage is and is not. And as we have argued and will argue, everyone benefits from a healthy marriage culture.

What is more, any marriage law at all communicates some message about what marriage is as a moral reality. The state has an obligation to get that message right, for the sake of people who might enter the institution, for their children, and for the community as a whole. To recognize only fertile marriages is to suggest that marriage is merely a means to procreation and childrearing – and not what it truly is, namely, a good in itself. It may also violate the principle of equality to which revisionists appeal, because infertile and fertile couples alike can form unions of the same basic kind: real marriages. In the absence of strong reasons for it, this kind of differential treatment would be unfair.

Finally, although a legal scheme that honored the conjugal conception of marriage, as our law has long done, would not restrict the incidents of marriage to spouses who happen to have children, its success would tend to limit children to families led by legally married spouses. After all, the more effectively the law teaches the truth about marriage, the more likely people are to enter into marriage and abide by its norms. And the more people form marriages and respect marital norms, the more likely it is that children will be reared by their wedded biological parents. Death and tragedy make the gap impossible to close completely, but a healthier marriage culture would make it shrink. Thus, enshrining the moral truth of marriage in law is crucial for securing the great social benefits served by real marriage.

 

[_Abyssinia]

.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155

To form a real marriage, a couple needs to establish and live out the kind of union that would be completed by, and be apt for, procreation and child‐rearing. Since any true and honorable harmony between two people has value in itself (not merely as a means), each such comprehensive union of two people – each permanent, exclusive commitment sealed by organic bodily union – certainly does as well.

Any act of organic bodily union can seal a marriage, whether or not it causes conception. The nature of the spouses’ action now cannot depend on what happens hours later independently of their control – whether a sperm cell in fact penetrates an ovum. And because the union in question is an organic bodily union, it cannot depend for its reality on psychological factors. It does not matter, then, if spouses do not intend to have children or believe that they cannot. Whatever their thoughts or goals, whether a couple achieves bodily union depends on facts about what is happening between their bodies.

It is clear that the bodies of an infertile couple can unite organically through coitus. Consider digestion, the individual body’s process of nourishment. Different parts of that process – salivation, chewing, swallowing, stomach action, intestinal absorption of nutrients – are each in their own way oriented to the broader goal of nourishing the organism. But our salivation, chewing, swallowing, and stomach action remain oriented to that goal (and remain digestive acts) even if on some occasion our intestines do not or cannot finally absorb nutrients, and even if we know so before we eat.

Similarly, the behavioral parts of the process of reproduction do not lose their dynamism toward reproduction if non‐behavioral factors in the process – for example, low sperm count or ovarian problems – prevent conception from occurring, even if the spouses expect this beforehand. As we have argued, bodies coordinating toward a single biological function for which each alone is not sufficient are rightly said to form an organic union.

Thus, infertility is no impediment to bodily union and therefore (as our law has always recognized) no impediment to marriage. This is because in truth marriage is not a mere means, even to the great good of procreation. It is an end in itself, worthwhile for its own sake. So it can exist apart from children, and the state can recognize it in such cases without distorting the moral truth about marriage.

Of course, a true friendship of two men or two women is also valuable in itself. But lacking the capacity for organic bodily union, it cannot be valuable specifically as a marriage: it cannot be the comprehensive union on which aptness for procreation and distinctively marital norms depend. That is why only a man and a woman can form a marriage – a union whose norms and obligations are decisively shaped by its essential dynamism toward children. For that dynamism comes not from the actual or expected presence of children, which some same‐sex partners and even cohabiting brothers could have, and some opposite‐sex couples lack, but from the way that marriage is sealed or consummated: in coitus, which is organic bodily union.

1. Still in the Public Interest

Someone might grant the principled point that infertility is not an impediment to marriage, and still wonder what public benefit a marriage that cannot produce children would have. Why, in other words, should we legally recognize an infertile marriage?

Practically speaking, many couples believed to be infertile end up having children, who would be served by their parents’ healthy marriage; and in any case, the effort to determine fertility would require unjust invasions of privacy. This is a concern presumably shared by revisionists, who would not, for example, require interviews for ascertaining partners’ level of affection before granting them a marriage license.

More generally, even an obviously infertile couple – no less than childless newlyweds or parents of grown children – can live out the features and norms of real marriage and thereby contribute to a healthy marriage culture. They can set a good example for others and help to teach the next generation what marriage is and is not. And as we have argued and will argue, everyone benefits from a healthy marriage culture.

What is more, any marriage law at all communicates some message about what marriage is as a moral reality. The state has an obligation to get that message right, for the sake of people who might enter the institution, for their children, and for the community as a whole. To recognize only fertile marriages is to suggest that marriage is merely a means to procreation and childrearing – and not what it truly is, namely, a good in itself. It may also violate the principle of equality to which revisionists appeal, because infertile and fertile couples alike can form unions of the same basic kind: real marriages. In the absence of strong reasons for it, this kind of differential treatment would be unfair.

Finally, although a legal scheme that honored the conjugal conception of marriage, as our law has long done, would not restrict the incidents of marriage to spouses who happen to have children, its success would tend to limit children to families led by legally married spouses. After all, the more effectively the law teaches the truth about marriage, the more likely people are to enter into marriage and abide by its norms. And the more people form marriages and respect marital norms, the more likely it is that children will be reared by their wedded biological parents. Death and tragedy make the gap impossible to close completely, but a healthier marriage culture would make it shrink. Thus, enshrining the moral truth of marriage in law is crucial for securing the great social benefits served by real marriage.

 

[_Abyssinia]

.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155

To form a real marriage, a couple needs to establish and live out the kind of union that would be completed by, and be apt for, procreation and child‐rearing. Since any true and honorable harmony between two people has value in itself (not merely as a means), each such comprehensive union of two people – each permanent, exclusive commitment sealed by organic bodily union – certainly does as well.

Any act of organic bodily union can seal a marriage, whether or not it causes conception. The nature of the spouses’ action now cannot depend on what happens hours later independently of their control – whether a sperm cell in fact penetrates an ovum. And because the union in question is an organic bodily union, it cannot depend for its reality on psychological factors. It does not matter, then, if spouses do not intend to have children or believe that they cannot. Whatever their thoughts or goals, whether a couple achieves bodily union depends on facts about what is happening between their bodies.

It is clear that the bodies of an infertile couple can unite organically through coitus. Consider digestion, the individual body’s process of nourishment. Different parts of that process – salivation, chewing, swallowing, stomach action, intestinal absorption of nutrients – are each in their own way oriented to the broader goal of nourishing the organism. But our salivation, chewing, swallowing, and stomach action remain oriented to that goal (and remain digestive acts) even if on some occasion our intestines do not or cannot finally absorb nutrients, and even if we know so before we eat.

Similarly, the behavioral parts of the process of reproduction do not lose their dynamism toward reproduction if non‐behavioral factors in the process – for example, low sperm count or ovarian problems – prevent conception from occurring, even if the spouses expect this beforehand. As we have argued, bodies coordinating toward a single biological function for which each alone is not sufficient are rightly said to form an organic union.

Thus, infertility is no impediment to bodily union and therefore (as our law has always recognized) no impediment to marriage. This is because in truth marriage is not a mere means, even to the great good of procreation. It is an end in itself, worthwhile for its own sake. So it can exist apart from children, and the state can recognize it in such cases without distorting the moral truth about marriage.

Of course, a true friendship of two men or two women is also valuable in itself. But lacking the capacity for organic bodily union, it cannot be valuable specifically as a marriage: it cannot be the comprehensive union on which aptness for procreation and distinctively marital norms depend. That is why only a man and a woman can form a marriage – a union whose norms and obligations are decisively shaped by its essential dynamism toward children. For that dynamism comes not from the actual or expected presence of children, which some same‐sex partners and even cohabiting brothers could have, and some opposite‐sex couples lack, but from the way that marriage is sealed or consummated: in coitus, which is organic bodily union.

1. Still in the Public Interest

Someone might grant the principled point that infertility is not an impediment to marriage, and still wonder what public benefit a marriage that cannot produce children would have. Why, in other words, should we legally recognize an infertile marriage?

Practically speaking, many couples believed to be infertile end up having children, who would be served by their parents’ healthy marriage; and in any case, the effort to determine fertility would require unjust invasions of privacy. This is a concern presumably shared by revisionists, who would not, for example, require interviews for ascertaining partners’ level of affection before granting them a marriage license.

More generally, even an obviously infertile couple – no less than childless newlyweds or parents of grown children – can live out the features and norms of real marriage and thereby contribute to a healthy marriage culture. They can set a good example for others and help to teach the next generation what marriage is and is not. And as we have argued and will argue, everyone benefits from a healthy marriage culture.

What is more, any marriage law at all communicates some message about what marriage is as a moral reality. The state has an obligation to get that message right, for the sake of people who might enter the institution, for their children, and for the community as a whole. To recognize only fertile marriages is to suggest that marriage is merely a means to procreation and childrearing – and not what it truly is, namely, a good in itself. It may also violate the principle of equality to which revisionists appeal, because infertile and fertile couples alike can form unions of the same basic kind: real marriages. In the absence of strong reasons for it, this kind of differential treatment would be unfair.

Finally, although a legal scheme that honored the conjugal conception of marriage, as our law has long done, would not restrict the incidents of marriage to spouses who happen to have children, its success would tend to limit children to families led by legally married spouses. After all, the more effectively the law teaches the truth about marriage, the more likely people are to enter into marriage and abide by its norms. And the more people form marriages and respect marital norms, the more likely it is that children will be reared by their wedded biological parents. Death and tragedy make the gap impossible to close completely, but a healthier marriage culture would make it shrink. Thus, enshrining the moral truth of marriage in law is crucial for securing the great social benefits served by real marriage.

 

[rossum]

Any act of organic bodily union can seal a marriage, whether or not it causes conception. The nature of the spouses’ action now cannot depend on what happens hours later independently of their control – whether a sperm cell in fact penetrates an ovum. And because the union in question is an organic bodily union, it cannot depend for its reality on psychological factors. It does not matter, then, if spouses do not intend to have children or believe that they cannot. Whatever their thoughts or goals, whether a couple achieves bodily union depends on facts about what is happening between their bodies.

Did you actually read that paragraph carefully? Read it again, slowly, and tell me what parts of it do not apply to same sex couples.

rossum

 

[JamesTheJust]

Did you actually read that paragraph carefully? Read it again, slowly, and tell me what parts of it do not apply to same sex couples.

rossum

You read this one:

Of course, a true friendship of two men or two women is also valuable in itself. But lacking the capacity for organic bodily union, it cannot be valuable specifically as a marriage: it cannot be the comprehensive union on which aptness for procreation and distinctively marital norms depend. That is why only a man and a woman can form a marriage – a union whose norms and obligations are decisively shaped by its essential dynamism toward children. For that dynamism comes not from the actual or expected presence of children, which some same‐sex partners and even cohabiting brothers could have, and some opposite‐sex couples lack, but from the way that marriage is sealed or consummated: in coitus, which is organic bodily union.

 

[JimG]

Did you actually read that paragraph carefully? Read it again, slowly, and tell me what parts of it do not apply to same sex couples.

rossum

Read it in conjunction with the paragraph that precedes it, beginning with this sentence:

“To form a real marriage, a couple needs to establish and live out the kind of union that would be completed by, and be apt for, procreation and child‐rearing.”

 

[rossum]

You read this one:

Of course, a true friendship of two men or two women is also valuable in itself. But lacking the capacity for organic bodily union, it cannot be valuable specifically as a marriage: it cannot be the comprehensive union on which aptness for procreation and distinctively marital norms depend. That is why only a man and a woman can form a marriage – a union whose norms and obligations are decisively shaped by its essential dynamism toward children. For that dynamism comes not from the actual or expected presence of children, which some same‐sex partners and even cohabiting brothers could have, and some opposite‐sex couples lack, but from the way that marriage is sealed or consummated: in coitus, which is organic bodily union.

I don’t know about your gay friends, but the ones I know do not lack the capacity for “organic bodily union”.

The point about “aptness for procreation” does not apply to all heterosexual marriages. Do you expect couples to divorce as soon as the woman has her menopause? There are heterosexual marriages where there are no children, either for medical reasons of through choice. Is a man who has had an orchidectomy, perhaps because of testicular cancer, not allowed to marry at all?

The paragraph you quote applies to some heterosexual married couples. Are you saying that those heterosexual marriages are invalid?

rossum

 

[rossum]

Read it in conjunction with the paragraph that precedes it, beginning with this sentence:

“To form a real marriage, a couple needs to establish and live out the kind of union that would be completed by, and be apt for, procreation and child‐rearing.”

Then no post-menopausal woman can get married. Nobody who is infertile due to treatment for cancer can get married.

There is no requirement for married couples to have children, either in civil law or in church law. Why are you adding this extra requirement, which invalidates some existing heterosexual marriages? Is a woman with a hysterectomy no longer married? Must a man with an orchidectomy get divorced immediately?

You need to think this one through more carefully.

rossum

 

[JamesTheJust]

What about childless heterosexual couples? How does an infertile heterosexual marriage differ from a same-sex marriage?

One big difference is that the heterosexual couple enjoys sexual complementarity, and the fullness that brings into their relationship, even if they cannot have children. Though the situation of an infertile couple is very different, there is a disturbing parallel to same-sex marriage in the situation of couples who simply choose not to have children.

Such couples are still able to have sex, the fullest physical expression of love between husband and wife. But they are doing something that profoundly disturbs the nature of the sexual act. Sexuality has two.aspects: the procreative (bringing forth children) and the unitive (strengthening the union of the couple). Artificially separating the unitive from the procreative brings discord to a marriage, distorts the relationship between husband and wife, and ends up harming their unity as spouses.

Pope John Paul II explains this with what he calls the “language of the body.” He observes that in the sexual act, man and woman implicitly give themselves totally to one another. That is what their bodies are saying, both symbolically and literally. Sexual expression, by its very nature, implies total gift of self to the other. The language of the body says, “I give myself to you completely, without reservation or condition.” But sometimes that statement is a lie. Sometimes one or both do not give themselves completely to the other but instead use the other selfishly, as a pleasure object. Treating the other as an object is divisive rather than unitive.

There are several ways men and women can reduce one another to the status of object. Sex between couples who are not married and therefore do not bring a total commitment to their union are, in the Holy Father’s terminology, telling a lie with their bodies, because their bodies speak a language of total, unconditional, and permanent self-giving when in fact they are doing nothing of the sort. In that sense, their sexual expression becomes a lie, because it misrepresents their relationship. Regardless of their feelings for each other, their sexual expression promises more than it objectively delivers.

Fornication and adultery are not the only ways couples can lie with their bodies. Married couples who are committed to exclusive, permanent, and unconditional love may also tell a lie with their bodies when they separate the procreative aspect of sex from the unitive through contraception. Here, the failure to give oneself fully is more subtle but nonetheless real. Deliberately frustrating the procreative.aspect of a sexual act creates a condition that makes self-giving only partial and reduces the spouse, in some degree, to a pleasure object used for selfish purposes.

This does not mean that sex can be truly self-giving only during fertile parts of a woman’s cycle. The Church has never taught that couples must have as many children as possible. Rather, it means that interference with fertility both arises out of spousal selfishness and increases it. The Church approves natural family planning, in which couples abstain during fertile periods when they prayerfully have determined that there is a need to avoid pregnancy. In these cases the spouses are not separating the unitive and procreative.aspects of a sexual act; they are simply refraining from performing the act. Similarly, sex after menopause or when suffering from other forms of infertility do not divide the unitive from the procreative. The couple’s act is still ordered toward procreation; it is simply that procreation will not occur.

Full article:
catholic.com/documents/gay-marriage

 

[Dawnia]

I don’t know about your gay friends, but the ones I know do not lack the capacity for “organic bodily union”.

rossum

So all your gay friends have sex with people of the opposite sex? That’s just weird.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Did you actually read that paragraph carefully? Read it again, slowly, and tell me what parts of it do not apply to same sex couples.

rossum

In other words, organic bodily unity is achieved when a man and a woman coordinate to perform an act of the kind that causes conception — a generative act. If it is a free and loving expression of spouses’ permanent and exclusive commitment, a generative act is also marital. Because interpersonal unions are valuable in themselves, and not merely as means to other ends, a husband and wife’s loving bodily union in coitus and the special kind of relationship to which it is integral are valuable whether or not conception results and even when conception is not sought. But two men or two women cannot achieve organic bodily union since there is no bodily good or function toward which their bodies can coordinate, reproduction being the only candidate. This is a clear sense in which their union cannot be marital, if marital means comprehensive and comprehensive means, among other things, bodily. This also explains why our law has historically treated coital consummation, not childbirth, as completing a marriage.

harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/GeorgeFinal.pdf

Two men or two women do not have sexual complementarity that a man and a woman do

Infertility can be caused by a medical problem which can be treated, and infertility is not the norm for most hetrosexual married couples

 

[rossum]

So all your gay friends have sex with people of the opposite sex?

A few have. Mostly they have sex with people of the same sex. Is what they have “organic bodily union”? Well, their bodies are organic, so the “organic bodily” part is definitely there. The “union” part is there is there as well, since they are united in having sex, and some of them are legally united in Civil Partnerships.

rossum

 

[JamesTheJust]

A few have. Mostly they have sex with people of the same sex. Is what they have “organic bodily union”? Well, their bodies are organic, so the “organic bodily” part is definitely there. The “union” part is there is there as well, since they are united in having sex, and some of them are legally united in Civil Partnerships.

rossum

In other words, organic bodily unity is achieved when a man and a woman coordinate to perform an act of the kind that causes conception — a generative act. If it is a free and loving expression of spouses’ permanent and exclusive commitment, a generative act is also marital. Because interpersonal unions are valuable in themselves, and not merely as means to other ends, a husband and wife’s loving bodily union in coitus and the special kind of relationship to which it is integral are valuable whether or not conception results and even when conception is not sought. But two men or two women cannot achieve organic bodily union since there is no bodily good or function toward which their bodies can coordinate, reproduction being the only candidate. This is a clear sense in which their union cannot be marital, if marital means comprehensive and comprehensive means, among other things, bodily. This also explains why our law has historically treated coital consummation, not childbirth, as completing a marriage.

 

[rossum]

Pope John Paul II explains…

How is this relevant to this thread? US law does not allow the establishment of any religion, and that law applies to Utah. We are discussing Federal and State law in Utah. Catholic law is not directly relevant. The Catholic position is well known, and is not changed one iota by this ruling.

You need to argue your case on grounds which are valid in US law.

It is worth pointing out that the number of marriages celebrated in Utah has increased dramatically in the last few days. Is that a bad thing? People are getting married, rather than not getting married and just living together.

rossum

 

[KyrieEleison17]

This could be the case that finally ends the debate over whether gay people are entitled to the same right to marry as straight people.

You don’t need to re-define, and thereby destroy, the concept of marriage in order to grant homosexuals the same “right” to marry as straight people do: they already had and have it and always did. Marriage did not prevent gay people from getting married: it is in fact what makes it possible in the first place. The false and totally artificial concept of so-called gay-marriage is more likely to prevent gay people from ever getting married.

Your problem is that you don’t have an understanding of what a marriage is.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

US law…

How is this relevant to this thread? U.S law does not establish what the truth is.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

A few have. Mostly they have sex with people of the same sex. Is what they have “organic bodily union”? Well, their bodies are organic, so the “organic bodily” part is definitely there. The “union” part is there is there as well, since they are united in having sex, and some of them are legally united in Civil Partnerships.

rossum

Two men can’t have sex with each other. Two women can’t have sex with each other.

Sex is always that act that is oriented to the generation of children. That is what sex is. Exclude this and it’s not sex and at best secondarily oriented to it, in the sense that foreplay is sexual, because it leads to sex. But foreplay is not sex.

Again, masturbation is not sex.

There are homosexual acts but “homosexual sex” betrays a confusion of the mind. Homosexuals can have sex. A gay man and a lesbian can have sex with each other. Similarly homosexuals can get married. But two men cannot marry each other nor can two women in part because they simply can’t actually have sex with each other.

 

[JamesTheJust]

How is this relevant to this thread? US law does not allow the establishment of any religion, and that law applies to Utah. We are discussing Federal and State law in Utah. Catholic law is not directly relevant. The Catholic position is well known, and is not changed one iota by this ruling.

You need to argue your case on grounds which are valid in US law.

It is worth pointing out that the number of marriages celebrated in Utah has increased dramatically in the last few days. Is that a bad thing? People are getting married, rather than not getting married and just living together.

rossum

1. So, because an idea came from a religious person’s mouth, it is immediately a religious idea and is unfit for consideration by any democratic government. Pope Francis supported peace in Syria. Does that mean peace in Syria is a religious idea and should be thrown out as US policy? You might do well to attempt to refute more than three words of an argument.
2. If said marriages are between two women or two men, then yes, it is a bad thing. The fact that said couples would otherwise be cohabiting is irrelevant and has no bearing on the truth value of either side of the argument.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

You need to argue your case on grounds which are valid in US law.

If racial slavery and the enslavement of non-Americans were enumerated as a right of white American citizens over others in the U.S Constitution, on what grounds would or should someone argue against a so-called right to enslave other people?

Please don’t evade the question by saying that a Constitutional amendment process would be required, because even that mechanism could technically be stricken from the Constitution by an amendment, in which case by your logic an American might well have the right to make you a piece of his furniture if he could get you to America.

 

[gilliam]

Federal judge allows same-sex marriage in Utah to continue

Same-sex marriages in Utah can continue after a federal judge denied the state’s request Monday to put a temporary hold on the unions.

…

Now that he has, the state has gone back to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to file for another emergency stay request. Acting Attorney General Brian Tarbet said the state would consider going to the Supreme Court if the appeals court doesn’t grant a stay.

The appeals court gave lawyers for same-sex marriage advocates until the end of the day to respond, signaling that no higher-court decision was likely until later this week at the earliest.

usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/23/22021385-federal-judge-allows-same-sex-marriage-in-utah-to-continue?lite=