Supreme Court Denies Appeal From Anti-Gay Marriage Group

National Organization for Marriage may be forced to disclose funders in Maine fight.

Image by Gary Cameron / Reuters

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal brought by the National Organization for Marriage, keeping in place a lower court ruling that applies Maine’s campaign finance laws to the group in its fight against allowing same-sex couples to marry in Maine.

NOM, one of the leading opponents of same-sex couples’ marriage rights, had asked the court to reverse a lower-court ruling that held Maine’s campaign finance laws were constitutionally applied to the group. The group had been involved in the 2009 referendum campaign that successfully overturned the legislature’s passage of a marriage equality law there.

NOM has argued that the state’s campaign finance laws are unconstitutional as applied to it. The first question it asked the Supreme Court to resolve in an appeal is “[w]hether the onerous burdens imposed on political committees advocating for or against candidates may be imposed on non-profit organizations speaking about ballot measures.” The lower court had sided with the state in forcing NOM to follow the state’s campaign finance laws. The Supreme Court, earlier this year, had denied a similar appeal from NOM in a related case out of Maine.

The Supreme Court announced that it had denied the appeal in today’s order list, a long list of action on cases that it had received requests about during its summer recess. On Sept. 25, the court announced which of those cases it was taking.
The Supreme Court took no action today, though, in any of the high-profile cases before the court relating to same-sex couples’ marriage rights.

Here’s today’s order denying the appeal of NOM’s case:

As expected, the court announced no action today on the appeal requests of the challenge to Proposition 8 or to the Defense of Marriage Act. BuzzFeed first reported that such was likely on Sept 21.

The Supreme Court also took no action in the Arizona appeal request raising the question of whether a state can eliminate same-sex couples’ government employee health benefits.