Pennsylvania Gay Marriage Ruling Stands, Governor Won't Appeal
Pennsylvania's
governor won't appeal Tuesday's decision by a federal judge that struck
down the state's ban on same-sex marriage.
After the state attorney
general declined last year to defend the ban, Gov. Tom Corbett, R-Pa.,
hired outside counsel to carry on the fight.
But on Wednesday, his office announced he had decided against an appeal.
"I have thoroughly
reviewed Judge Jones' opinion in the Whitewood case. Given the high
legal threshold set forth by Judge Jones in this case, the case is
extremely unlikely to succeed on appeal," Corbett said in a statement.
"Therefore, after review of the opinion and on the advice of my
Commonwealth legal team, I have decided not to appeal Judge Jones'
decision."
MARK MAKELA / Reuters
Nineteen states plus Washington, D.C., now allow gay marriage. On Monday, a U.S. district judge in Oregon ruled the ban on same-sex marriage in that state was unconstitutional. Oregon's attorney general, a Democrat, decided not to appeal the ruling.
In states that ban gay
marriage, all but two — North Dakota and South Dakota — face challenges.
If the bans are overturned, legal experts predict more states may not
appeal, as they chose not to do in Oregon and Pennsylvania.
"I think that we're
going to see more governors or state attorneys general really think
through the question of whether it makes sense to appeal from a ruling
against them on the marriage question," said James Esseks, director of
the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project. "Since
public opinion on the issue is changing so much, the politics of whether
it makes sense to continue spending millions of dollars in taxpayer
money on this issue is changing."
—Elizabeth Chuck
NBC News' Pete Williams contributed to this report.
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