Gay marriage decision could hit Nevada quickly
By Sean Whaley, Las Vegas Review-Journal
CARSON CITY — A ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finding Nevada’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional could almost immediately open the floodgates to gay unions across the state, a legal analyst involved in the challenge said Tuesday.
Lambda Legal Legal Director Jon Davidson said that is what happened in cases in Pennsylvania and Oregon when a federal appeals court found those same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional.
When state officials in those two states decided, as they have in Nevada, not to challenge the effort to overturn the bans, the rulings were allowed to go immediately into effect, he said. Efforts to stay the rulings were denied all they way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Davidson said.
“So we might see a similar scenario in Nevada,” he said.
But while the marriages might happen quickly in Nevada, Clark County Clerk Diana Alba said she has been told by the county district attorney’s civil division that officials should have a 21-day period to prepare for same-sex unions.
The 9th Circuit is scheduled to hear arguments in the challenge to Nevada’s same-sex marriage ban on Monday in San Francisco. A ruling is not expected for several weeks.
Why do we have to call it marriage could we not have a legally binding situation for people who want to live together ?
David, its none of the governments business what it is called and if a church wants to marry two gay folks then that’s the church’s business. They can call it what they want. How government got involved with this is beyond me. The extension of this is that government, if it insists on being involved in this, should recognize all contracts that effectively result in marriage. And that type of contract should be called marriage. Its a financial contract period. Marriage in the church is different and its up to individual churches to figure out how they want to deal with it.