Supreme Court rejects request to halt CA gay marriages

In a last-ditch effort to halt same-sex marriages in California, proponents of the state's ban on gay unions filed an emergency request to the Supreme Court to vacate a Ninth Circuit ruling that allowed weddings to begin Friday.

Justice Anthony Kennedy denied the request from the Alliance Defending Freedom without comment, said Theodore Boutrous Jr., attorney for the sponsors of Proposition 8.

"The Ninth Circuit's June 28, 2013 Order purporting to dissolve the stay...is the latest in a long line of judicial irregularities that have unfairly thwarted Petitioners' defense of California's marriage amendment," the petition read.

The group's request came after the Ninth Circuit waved away the final obstacles to same-sex marriages and allowing weddings to resume just two days after the Supreme Court decided not to rule on Prop 8's constitutionality.

According to the ruling, the sponsors of Prop 8 did not have legal standing to appeal a decision by the Ninth Circuit to strike down the voter-approved measure banning same-sex marriages. A hold -- pending appeal to the Supreme Court -- had then prevented marriages from beginning again.

After the court's decision, the three-judge Ninth Circuit panel said it would wait the standard 25 days to lift the hold on marriages.

Instead, it began issuing marriage licenses on Friday. Kris Perry and Sandy Steir, two of the plaintiffs in Hollingsworth v. Perry, were married Friday, becoming the first gay couple wed in California since Prop 8 went into effect four years ago.