Same-sex marriage briefs swamp Supreme Court

• Hundreds of businesses%2C organizations call for same-sex marriage bans to be reversed.
• Republican%2C conservative officials from across U.S. call to end bans.
• Hundreds of thousands of pages of signatures are coming from Human Rights Campaign.

WASHINGTON – With the U.S. Supreme Court set to decide the legality of same-sex marriage bans in Michigan and elsewhere this year, dozens of legal briefs representing hundreds of thousands of parties calling for the bans to be overturned flowed into the court ahead of a filing deadline today.

While many of the briefs came from groups who have long fought to have the bans reversed, support also came from more unexpected sources: More than 300 Republican, conservative and center-right activists and government officials signed a brief in support of overturning the bans. Another brief was signed by hundreds of U.S. companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Apple, Microsoft and more.

"Inconsistent state marriage laws impose an added economic burden on American businesses at an estimated cost of over one billion dollars per year," said the brief filed by 379 businesses and organizations which also included Michigan's Dow Chemical and the NFL champion New England Patriots. "The patchwork of state laws applicable to same-sex marriage ... impairs our business interests."

Brian Auld, president of the Tampa Bay Rays, which also signed the brief, said businesses have a clear stake in letting prospective employees know of their inclusiveness as well.

Friend of the court, or amicus, briefs were being filed ahead of the Supreme Court's hearing on challenges to same-sex marriage bans in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee set for April 28. A decision, expected by summer, could help determine the status of same-sex marriage bans nationwide.

More than 200 congressional Democrats filed a brief in support of overturning the bans.

The briefs filed today included one signed by 92 plaintiffs challenging same-sex marriage bans in 15 other states, some of which, like Alabama, are fighting over whether federal court decisions trump local bans on same-sex marriages.

Briefs in support of overturning the bans were due Friday. While briefs from those who want to keep the bans were due April 3, a week after respondents in the case filed theirs.

While the court doesn't keep records on how many amicus briefs it receives in each case, it appeared that the number in these cases could eventually equal or surpass the 136 filed in cases involving a challenge to the Affordable Care Act in 2011-12 and 157 in same-sex marriage cases decided in 2013.

For the Obama administration, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. submitted a brief calling for the court to submit the bans to heightened scrutiny before allowing them to stand, saying gays and lesbians have faced "pervasive" injury and that the U.S. has "a strong interest in the eradication of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

"These states have burdened petitioners in every aspect of life that marriage touches," the brief said, adding that gays and lesbians have been targeted by law enforcement and subjected to hate crimes and employment discrimination.

"These facially discriminatory laws impose concrete harms on same-sex couples and their children and send the inescapable message that same-sex couples are second-class families, unworthy of the recognition and benefits that opposite-sex couples take for granted," the brief said.

The court is considering whether states are required under constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Many of the arguments for overturning the bans say they unfairly target one group of people, creating legal barriers to couples and their children through a system difficult to overturn through normal democratic processes.

In the Michigan challenge, two Hazel Park nurses, April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, are arguing that the state's 2004 ban on same-sex marriage hurts them and their four adopted children. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has argued that the court should uphold a ban enacted by 59% of the voters at referendum.

Thirty-seven states and Washington, D.C. permit same-sex marriages under local laws or court decisions. The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld bans in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee last year, saying it was "Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes."

In what was expected to be the largest single filing, the Human Rights Campaign filed what it called its "people's brief," with more than 207,551 signatures solicited online over a three-week period. With the court requiring 50 copies of each petition, the HRC delivered 19 boxes containing some 175,000 total pages to the court.

Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the Ohio challenge, whose partner died in 2011, was on hand as HRC filed its brief.

The briefs included those from Fortune 100 companies, religious organizations and one representing some 225 mayors from across the country, including Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, and the nation's five largest cities. Others represented children's advocacy groups, civil rights groups and others. A final count on how many briefs were submitted was not expected until later.

"We're seeing a societal consensus emerge at this time which is pushing the court to act at this time and do the right thing," said Camilla Taylor, marriage project director for Lambda Legal.

Groups, organizations and others filing or signing briefs in support of overturning the ban ranged from the American Bar Association — which included a table of the many legal protections afforded legally married couples and their children that are denied same-sex couples and their families — to universities, organizations representing gay service members, Ohio's Cuyahoga County, the Commonwealth of Virginia and more. Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor signed on to one brief.

Arguments ranged from those that said it is unfair to create a separate class of married couples and families to those urging the court to find a broad, fundamental right to marry. Others pointed to the language included in enacting the bans -- such as that in Ohio describing "deviant relationships" -- as proof they were done to ward against a constitutionally impermissible bias.

"No religion's belief or practice should be allowed to restrict the rights of people to marry and receive equal protection under the law," said the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, president of the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church, which submitted a brief arguing that these cases are about civil -- not religious -- definitions of marriage.

On Thursday night, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, now the head Project Right Side, which wants to improve the political climate for gays and lesbians, filed a brief signed by 303 Republican, conservative, libertarian and center-right current and past political officials.

Those signing included former Utah governor and presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, numerous officials with Mitt Romney's and John McCain's presidential campaigns, former Republican candidate for California governor Meg Whitman, U.S. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, former Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, Republican donor David Koch, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and many others.

"I happen to be a big believer in individual rights," said Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who signed the brief. "We should simply permit people who are in love to marry the people they are in love with."

A large number from Michigan was represented as well, including former Gov. William Milliken, former state Attorney General Mike Cox, and Jennifer Gratz, executive director of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, who brought an affirmative action case that is being used by Schuette in the present one to argue that the state ban should be upheld.

"The bans are accordingly inconsistent with (our) understanding of the properly limited role of government," the brief read. "There is a need for more Americans to choose to participate in the institution of marriage. Yet these bans, by denying each member of an entire class of American citizens the right to marry the person he or she loves, discourage those important family values."

In another filing, more than 150 elected officials and former officeholders from Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee signed a brief asking that the bans be overturned. Attorneys general from 17 states — and officials from 20 states in all — filed briefs in support of overturning the bans, as did numerous legal scholars from across the U.S.

Contact Todd Spangler at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on twitter at @tsspangler.