A federal appeals court has issued a temporary stay of Judge Friedman’s ruling until the 26th. That means that the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Michigan is suspended until at least Wednesday.
Attorney General Bill Schuette has until noon on Tuesday to submit his arguements on why it should be extended beyond the next day.
About 300 marriage licenses were issued Saturday as four County Clerks opened outside normal business hours, just for this reason. They opened in Muskegon, Ingham, Washtenaw and Oakland Counties.
The stay settled the issue of what the State’s 77 other County Clerks were going to do Monday mornng.
It’s not known exactly how many marriages were performed before the stay went into effect, leaving those couples in a state of legal limbo. They may have the paperwork and gone through the ceremony, but the state won’t recognize their rights as a married couple until the appeals are settled.
About 13-hundred same-sex marriages took place in Utah in the weeks before the Supreme Court granted a stay on a similar ruling that overturned the gay marriage ban in that state.
Agencies/Canadajournal