Even if the justices agree to hear the case, oral arguments before the court would not be held until the spring and a final ruling would not be issued until early summer. If the justices turn down the appeal, the ruling by a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would stand.
The federal appeals panel upheld gay-marriage bans not only in Ohio, but Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky.
In a pair of 5-4 rulings issued in June of 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court suggested they have deep constitutional doubts about state laws banning same-sex marriage.
In the first case, the justices struck down a 1996 federal law that defined marriage as only between a man and a woman. In the second case, the justices dismissed a challenge brought by supporters of a California referendum in 2008 that banned same-sex marriage.
By doing so, the justices let stand a 2010 decision by a federal judge in California that the referendum violated the U.S. Constitution. The high court’s ruling allowed same-sex marriage to resume again in California.
In November 2004, Ohioans voted 62 percent to 38 percent to adopt a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to between one man and one woman and barring government from recognizing any other relationships that attempt to mimic heterosexual marriage.
Gay rights supporters are pursuing a statewide ballot issue in 2015 or 2016.
Volunteers for the Freedom to Marry Ohio group need to collect just over 301,000 valid voter signatures to put a constitutional amendment up for a statewide vote. The signature number is based on how many ballots were cast in the most recent gubernatorial election. Because of the historic low turn out on Nov. 4, the petition signature threshold fell by some 84,000, according to Ian James, the group’s co-founder.
James Obergefell of Cincinnati, and his husband, John Arthur, challenged the Ohio ban in federal court after the twin rulings by the nation’s highest court. Following last month’s ruling by the 6th Circuit, Obergefell appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Arthur, 47, who was terminally ill from Lou Gehrig’s disease, died Oct. 22, 2103.
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