PHILADELPHIA — A federal appeals court has rejected a county official’s bid to appeal a ruling that overturned Pennsylvania’s same-sex marriage ban.
The Philadelphia-based U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Thursday denied Schuylkill County Orphans Court Clerk Theresa Santai-Gaffney’s request to intervene in the case.
She said she plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III struck down the marriage ban on May 20. Pennsylvania was the last northeastern state to ban same-sex marriage.
Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration was defending the law, but declined to appeal Jones’ May 20 decision to strike down the 1996 law.
“If the highest elected official in the commonwealth chooses to abide by our decision, it defies credulity that we would permit a single citizen to stand in for him to perfect an appeal,” Jones wrote in rejecting her initial request last month.
Pennsylvania was the last northeastern state to bar gay marriage. Same-sex marriage is now legal in the state of nearly 13 million.
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