The Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court has announced a large number of the cases that they will be considering this upcoming term. Among those that they appear to not be taking up as of yet are any related to same-sex marriage. Typically, the Supreme Court of the United States takes up only a handful of the cases appealed to it. If they reject an appeal, that means that the lower courts’ rulings stand.

The National Organization for Marriage appealed a lower court ruling regarding Maine’s campaign finance laws. NOM asked that the court reverse the lower court’s ruling that upheld Maine’s campaign finance laws. NOM argued that the laws imposed onerous burdens “on political committees advocating for or against candidates may be imposed on non-profit organizations speaking about ballot measures.”

The lower court sided with the state. The Supreme Court had, in past cases, denied NOM’s requests to find laws requiring them to name their donors unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court has not announced any action with regards to appeals challenging Proposition 8 or the Defense of Marriage Act. They may be waiting until such time that all current cases can be lumped into one hearing. That happened in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, et al. The Supreme Court took no action on the five cases until all of the ones lumped into Brown v. Board of Education were ready to be heard.