Today National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), attorneys Abby Rubenfeld, Maureen Holland, and Regina Lambert, and the law firms of Sherrard & Roe PLC and Ropes & Gray LLP requested the Supreme Court of the United States hear their case.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned lower court rulings that struck down state marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.  This was the first time a federal appeals court ruled against marriage equality after four other federal appeals courts upheld district court rulings that the bans are unconstitutional.

“The court of appeals’ holding not only denies recognition to petitioners’ own marriages and families, but also establishes a “checkerboard” nation in which same-sex couples’ marriages are dissolved and reestablished as they travel across the country,” the plaintiff couples stated in the request. “That is the antithesis of the stability that marriage is supposed to afford.”

Earlier today, Lambda Legal, the ACLU and private firm Gerhardstein & Branch also petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States for a writ of certiorari, the formal request that the Court review its cases challenging Ohio’s constitutional ban on marriage equality.

Source: HRC Blog, “Tennessee Plaintiffs Appeal Sixth Circuit Ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court,” November 14, 2014 by Maureen McCarty, HRC Associate Director of Digital Media