10th Circuit Court denies Utah’s Emergency Motion for Temporary Stay

UPDATED: Vote in the Fox News poll on same sex marriage here.

While one never knows for certain what an appellate court will ultimately do after a case is fully briefed and argued, it is sometimes telling if an appellate court will not grant a temporary stay of a lower court ruling.  Why?  Because a stay is usually granted in order to (i) freeze things in place pending the appeal and (ii) set the stage for a reversal of the lower court ruling.  The denial of a motion to stay a ruling therefore can sometimes - but not always - be indicative of the fact that the appellate court is NOT likely to reverse the lower court holding.  In this case, the State of Utah appealed the District Court ruling that struck down Utah's bans on gays marriage and asked that the U. S. Circuit of Appeals for the 10th Circuit stay the lower court ruling so that marriages could not proceed.  In case, this emergency motion was denied.  A hearing on the motion will be argued tomorrow.  Meanwhile, may same sex couples will rush to marry while the lower court's ruling  remains binding.  It goes without saying that the Christofascist and shriveled old men who rule the Mormon Church will not be happy that the 10th Circuit did not summarily stay the lower court's ruling.  Here are highlights from Fox News:

Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert filed seeking an Emergency Motion for Temporary Stay following a federal judge’s ruling that struck down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage, and on Sunday the United States Court of Appeals Tenth District denied the motion.

According to court documents, “The Defendants-Appellants ask this court to stay the district court’s order pending the district court’s ruling on a motion for stay pending appeal that is currently pending in that court.”

According to the documents, the filing for an Emergency Motion for Temporary Stay did not address nor satisfy the factors that must be established to be entitled to a stay pending an appeal.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby has scheduled a hearing Monday at 9 a.m. on the state’s request to halt same-sex marriages, and pro same-sex marriage groups in Utah encouraged people to take advantage of the limited window in which marriage licenses were guaranteed to be granted in several counties.

In a post on their Facebook page, Equality Utah said, “Worst case scenario we will only have 1 hour in which marriages can be performed by the respective county clerks.”

In the post titled, “Everything you need to know about getting married tomorrow morning” Equality Utah said they had confirmed that Salt Lake and Weber county clerks would be open and ready to marry people “exactly at 8am”. The post advised couples to download and fill out their applications online ahead of time to expedite the process.

Brandie Balken, Executive Director of Equality Utah, confirmed the details of the posting to FOX 13 News over the phone Sunday.