A guide.
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This will be the second time the justices have considered whether to take any of the cases out of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and/or Tennessee. When they did so on Jan. 9, they took no action on those cases, instead re-listing them for discussion on Friday.
This is a new practice by the court over the past year or so, re-listing cases they are considering taking once before accepting a case, called granting a writ of certiorari.
The justices did, however, deny an attempt by same-sex couples in Louisiana to have the Supreme Court hear their case before the appeals court — which heard their appeal on Jan. 9 — decided on the appeal.
Now, however, they are faced with choosing whether they will hear one or more of the four other cases — a decision that will foretell whether the justices intend to resolve the question of bans on marriage for same-sex couples nationwide by this June.
In striking down DOMA's ban on federal recognition of same-sex couples' marriages in Edith Windsor's case on June 26, 2013, however, the justices opened the floodgates for marriage equality.
Just short of six months later, on Dec. 20, 2013, a federal judge in Utah declared the state's ban unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby refused to put his ruling on hold during the appeal, same-sex couples began marrying, and 2014 began with 18 states that allowed same-sex couples to marry. The Supreme Court eventually stepped in on Jan. 7, 2014 to stop marriages from proceeding while the case was appealed.
A year later, more than double as many states had marriage equality, with same-sex couples marrying in all of 35 states and in parts of two more.