Supreme Court: No decision on gay marriage

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court, after spending most of the day preparing new orders, took no action Friday on the 10 same-sex marriage cases on the docket.

The next chance the court has to issue order will be Monday.

Scotusblog.com said nothing so far has eliminated the possibility that some action on same-sex marriage could be announced Monday, but there also is no indication that such an announcement would occur.

The 10 petitions before the court concern only three laws that were struck down by lower courts, Scotusblog.com said.

One law is the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, limiting access to federal marital benefits or programs to marriages of a man and a woman. Another is a 2009 Arizona law, Section O, that limits marital state employee benefits to those who can marry in the state; gays and lesbians are barred from marrying in Arizona.

Another is Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment voters approved four years ago that withdrew a right of same-sex couples to marry in the state after the state Supreme Court ruled laws banning same-sex marriage violated the state Constitution.