|
 The admonishment from Attorney General Sean Reyes' office came
shortly before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied for a
third time a state request to put the judge's ruling on hold while
the case remained under court review.
Ryan Bruckner, a spokesman for the attorney general, said the
instruction was not intended as an official dictate but to advise
county clerks "if they continue to deny (applicants), they could
have problems with being in contempt of court."
"I would not expect to see much of a problem past Thursday," said
Bruckner, adding that he expected all 29 of Utah's counties to
comply with the court order. State and county government offices are
closed on Wednesday in observance of the Christmas holiday.
Utah became the 18th state to extend marriage rights to gays and
lesbians when U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby on Friday sided with
three same-sex couples in their lawsuit challenging a voter-passed
amendment to the Utah Constitution that defined marriage as
exclusively between a man and a woman.
Shelby's finding that the exclusion violated gay couples' rights to
due process and equal protection marked a major victory for gay
rights activists in a conservative state, and it appears to have
taken some people by surprise in Utah.
At least four counties were still refusing to issue marriage
licenses as of Monday, according the Salt Lake City-based gay rights
group Utah Pride.
It was unclear how many counties were continuing to do so on
Tuesday, or if any had changed course due to the message from the
attorney general's office.
Salt Lake County, the state's most populous county, began issuing
marriage licenses to same-sex applicants within hours of Shelby's
ruling on Friday.
Utah County, the second most populous county in the state, was among
the jurisdictions that did not immediately follow the federal
court's order. On Monday, Salt Lake City television station KUTV
followed a lesbian couple into the Utah County clerk's office, where
they were denied, according to the station.
[to top of second column] |
Officials in rural Cache County issued a statement on Monday saying
they had closed the clerk's office there "until further notice" so
that they could "sort out the legal issues and confusion created in
the wake of Judge Shelby's opinion." The office remained closed on
Tuesday.
San Juan County Commission Chairman Bruce Adams said before the
advisement from the attorney general that his office was waiting for
legal direction from the state. "There's no effort to deny anybody,
we're just waiting," he said.
Utah Governor Gary Herbert has already filed a formal notice of his
intention to appeal Shelby's ruling on its merits.
On Monday, Shelby denied a request from the state to put his own
ruling on hold pending appeal. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals, based in Denver, has likewise declined to issue an
emergency stay of the ruling, as requested by the state.
"Having considered the district court's decision and the parties'
arguments concerning the stay factors, we conclude that a stay is
not warranted," Circuit Judges Jerome Holmes and Robert Bacharach
wrote on Tuesday in the court's third denial.
President Barack Obama in 2011 nominated Shelby to be a federal
judge in Utah, and he won confirmation from the U.S. Senate in 2012
with Utah's two Republican senators, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee,
lending their support.
(Additional reporting by Robert Boczkiewicz in Denver;
writing by
Alex Dobuzinskis and Steve Gorman; editing by Edith Honan, Steve
Orlofsky and Bill Trott)
[© 2013 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2013 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
