By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services/Arizona Daily Star
Arizona will have to continue providing benefits to the domestic partners of its gay state and university employees, at least for the time being.
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its last orders of the calendar year on Monday. And Arizona’s bid to have the justices take up the question was nowhere on the list.
But the delay in resolving the case is likely to be even longer than just January.
Last week the court opted to hear two issues related to gay rights: California’s Proposition 8, which overturns a state law allowing gay people to wed, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which denies federal recognition to gay couples who marry in states where that is legal.
Tara Borelli of Lambda Legal, which sued the state in a case called Diaz, said that inaction is significant.
“Given that the Supreme Court didn’t issue any order in any direction in Diaz, we believe that they will hold the case until they have issued a decision in the Proposition 8 case and the DOMA case that they accepted for review,” she said. “And that is anticipated to be sometime in June of 2013.”
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne conceded Monday the decision to take the other cases – but not the Arizona case – suggests the justices are not interested in ruling on his issue at this point.
“The probability is, they won’t take it,” he said, at least not now.
