Couples urge Sotomayor to allow same-sex marriages as Utah appeals struck-down ban

Same-sex couples urged U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to allow courts to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Utah, despite the appeal process of a federal judge’s ruling that struck down the state’s gay marriage ban in December.
After newly sworn-in Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes requested that the state halt the marriages during Tuesday’s appeal, lawyers filed a response on behalf of same-sex couples.

(Read the official request for a stay on same-sex marriages, filed by Utah’s Attorney General’s Office with the Supreme Court.)

The original law banning same-sex unions was passed by Utah voters in 2004. U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby found that the law violated same-sex couples’ rights to equal protection under the 14th amendment.

Since the ban was struck down in December, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that more than a thousand same-sex couples have wed in Utah.