U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

With one ruling, the court could decide that LGBTQ Americans are protected from discrimination nationwide.

The court has allotted two-and-a-half hours on the last Tuesday in April for arguments in same-sex gay marriages cases from four states.

An appeals court says a fired lawyer for the state of Michigan should not be granted a new trial in a defamation suit filed by a gay former University of Michigan student government president.

Setting the stage for a potentially historic ruling, the Supreme Court says it will decide whether same-sex couples nationwide have a right to marry under the Constitution. The justices said Friday they will review an appellate ruling that upheld bans on same-sex unions in four states.

The Supreme Court has quietly engineered a dramatic increase in the number of states that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed. That increase also has raised the chances the justices soon will settle the legal debate.

WASHINGTON — A same-sex couple from Michigan is putting the question of the right to marry nationwide squarely before the Supreme Court. The couple’s plea to be allowed to marry was being filed Monday. It asks the justices to hold that state laws prohibiting same-sex couples from getting married violate “our nation’s most cherished and essential guarantees.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Three same-sex couples challenging Tennessee’s ban on same-sex marriage and refusal to recognize their out-of-state marriages, asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to hear their case after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that state marriage bans do not violate the U.S. Constitution.

WASHINGTON — A decision by a panel of federal judges to uphold anti-gay marriage laws in four states has created a split among the nation’s appeals courts and made it very likely the Supreme Court will review the same-sex marriage issue. But it is unclear whether the matter will reach the justices in time for a decision in June.

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho officials say a recent ruling upholding same-sex marriage bans in four states could cause the U.S. Supreme Court to take up Idaho’s case. Earlier this year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Idaho’s gay marriage ban. But on Thursday, a separate federal appeals court upheld the ban in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

Depending upon how fast lawyers choose to move, the issue of same-sex marriage could be back before the Supreme Court in a matter of days. So far, only one option has been closed off. The remaining options have some, perhaps considerable, chances of success. The decision Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, upholding bans on same-sex marriage in four states, has clearly increased the prospect that the Justices will now take on one or more appeals — perhaps even in time for decision in the current term…