Judge puts a temporary hold on same-sex marriage ban in Tennessee

Judicial support for same-sex marriage continues to pick up steam. A federal court in Tennessee ruled Friday that the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional insofar as it applies to the couples who sued the state.

… Well, sort of

Federal District Judge Aleta Traugher issued a narrowly worded injunction that applies to three couples as plaintiffs. No other couples can yet obtain marriage licenses in Tennessee, and the state remains free to deny benefits to same-sex couples married elsewhere in the country.

But the ruling is an important crack in the armor that Tennessee voters erected in a 2006 constitutional amendment saying marriage was limited to one man and one woman.

"At this point, all signs indicate that, in the eyes of the United States Constitution, the plaintiffs' marriages will be placed on an equal footing with those of heterosexual couples and that proscriptions against same-sex marriage will soon become a footnote in the annals of American history," Judge Trauger wrote.

Ever since the United States Supreme Court ruled last June that the federal Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional, lower courts in seven states have overturned bans, at least partially, that blocked marriage equality. Judge Trauger's ruling is the fourth in Southern or border states, the others being Virginia, Texas and Kentucky.

If cases such as these are upheld on appeal, then the question becomes whether Southerners will find ways to get around the ruling, as they did for awhile when the court outlawed racial desegregation in the 1950s.

However, attitudes are changing in the South. Last week, a Washington Post poll found that 50 percent of Southerners surveyed—the most ever—support marriage equality. Nationally the poll found 59 percent support. Forty-two Southerners were opposed.

A slew of appeals court hearings are scheduled on lower court rulings in favor of same-sex marriage. (That's why on my map I do not mark these rulings as final; they could be overturned on appeal.) Oral argument in Virginia's case will go before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond on April 10. Utah's case is scheduled for May 12 before the Tenth Circuit Court in Denver. The Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco has not announced when it will hear Nevada's case.

If any one of those appellate courts reject the legal basis for same-sex marriage, the U.S. Supreme Court will need to decide the issue once and for all, probably during its next term, which starts in October 2014. It would then have until June 2015 to hand down a decision.

Yellow: same-sex marriage laws or rulings now in force

Blue: same-sex marriage prohibited

Green: federal courts have ruled in favor of same-sex marriage; the rulings are on appeal

Brown (Kentucky): same-sex marriage within the state is prohibited but marriages allowed elsewhere are permissible. Case is on appeal.