--- title: Supreme Court Passes on Gay Marriage for Now description: The Supreme Court skipped an early opportunity to wade back into the national debate on gay marriage Thursday. canonical: https://time.com/3456672/supreme-court-gay-marriage/ author: Noah Rayman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-02T16:02:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:34.124Z article:section: Politics og:title: Supreme Court Passes on Gay Marriage for Now og:description: The Supreme Court skipped an early opportunity to wade back into the national debate on gay marriage Thursday. og:url: https://time.com/3456672/supreme-court-gay-marriage/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd63495a19f4741a1/6986a699e8524bba62605079/168015456.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4200 og:image:height: 2363 og:image:alt: 168015456 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Supreme Court Passes on Gay Marriage for Now twitter:description: The Supreme Court skipped an early opportunity to wade back into the national debate on gay marriage Thursday. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd63495a19f4741a1/6986a699e8524bba62605079/168015456.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Supreme Court Passes on Gay Marriage Debate for Now > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=1b62ce17-1cb3-4c0f-aea1-cc16bf0cc77f&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Edie and Thea: A Love Story [Watch (HLS stream): Edie and Thea: A Love Story](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Kc02dmNR.m3u8) (4:37)  _Published 2013-12-11. Edith Windsor reflects on her life with late spouse, Thea Spyer, and the meaning of gay marriage_  by [Noah Rayman](https://time.com/author/noah-rayman/)  ## Noah Rayman Oct 2, 2014 4:02 PM UTC  Supreme Court of the United States Supreme Court of the United States Phil Roeder—Getty Images  by [Noah Rayman](https://time.com/author/noah-rayman/)  ## Noah Rayman Oct 2, 2014 4:02 PM UTC The Supreme Court skipped an early opportunity to wade back into the national debate on gay marriage Thursday. The nation’s top court did not include the seven different pending cases regarding same-sex marriage on a list of arguments it has agreed to hear that was released Thursday, ahead of the beginning of a new term on Monday, USA Today [reports](http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-takes-no-immediate-action-gay-marriage-134524235.html). But that doesn’t necessarily mean the Supreme Court won’t weigh in on the cases this term. The court often holds off on deciding whether to hear high-profile cases until later in its term. The cases in question revolve around gay marriage bans in five states: Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana and Wisconsin. The Supreme Court last year ruled that the federal government could not deny benefits to same-sex couples but did not take a position on whether states are constitutionally allowed to ban same-sex marriage. [According](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/02/supreme-court-gay-marriage/16547165/?utm%5Fsource=feedblitz&utm%5Fmedium=FeedBlitzRss&utm%5Fcampaign=usatoday-newstopstories) to _USA Today,_ 31 states currently have marriage bans in place. But since last year’s Supreme Court ruling, judges in more than a dozen of those states have overturned the bans, leaving them in place pending appeals. \[[_USA Today_](http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-takes-no-immediate-action-gay-marriage-134524235.html)\] ## Transcript [00:45] >>Now I was nice- looking, nice- looking person, you [00:47] know. [00:51] >>I mean, I [ unk ] kids already too. For the, she was, [00:55] she was a beauty no question. She was the beautiful [00:59] one. I had the body. She was very beautiful. I [01:05] mean, we were. We were [01:10] in love but I don't think, [ unk ] it was gonna last for [01:14] you know, for two years. And [01:19] that's the first summer that we'd shared the place. And [01:24] that, that's and I, I've asked her, you know, a many [01:27] years later. When did you really fall in love with me? I [01:28] mean, that summer and that's when we became [01:32] engaged [ unk ]. That would had been 1967. When, [01:39] you have to go back to why did we originally become [01:42] engaged and a-- and a not just, it [01:47] just happened. I mean, Thea decided that she wanted [01:49] to do that. And, and we were driving out to the [01:53] Hamptons and she started talking to me about, what [01:57] would you do if you were to get married, get-- get, [02:00] become engaged? And I said, well I couldn't, I couldn't [02:03] wear a ring, okay, because, because then, they would [02:06] need to know, you know, who he is and when do we [02:08] meet him. By the time we got to the destination, she [02:10] got down on her knees and she said, " Edith Winsor, [02:13] will you marry me ?", and she had a circle with [02:16] diamonds. And then I said, " Yes, yes, yes ". And she [02:19] went furious because I did let her finish the sentence [02:24] and I said, yes, yes, yes. [02:26] >>But all our friends, they just, you know. People you [02:29] work with are okay though. Clients and stuffs like that. [02:34] At one point, I talked to Thea about it. I was saying, [02:38] " You know, we have both been very successful like in [02:40] our fields and stuff. Why could it had been [02:45] if hadn't put all of that energy in to being hidden ?", [02:50] and she said, " Oh, stop that, no effect on me at all ." [02:53] And within 10 minutes we were both crying, okay. [02:58] So, we they had plenty of effect for both of us, [03:02] obviously. Whether, but nothing, [03:07] you know, actively at that time. [03:11] At day after, we felt differently, that I have seen, you [03:15] know, I clearly everybody who've had a long [03:19] engagement, relationship who then gets married, is [03:21] different the next morning. And everybody says, yes [03:24] absolutely. There's some legitimacy that [03:29] we never know we were lacking. And we heard from [03:32] people, we heard from probably a thousand people [03:35] with, with the announcement happened in the New [03:37] York Times. The, from every walk of our [03:41] life and people of course, who had never known [03:45] anything about- about our sex lives, there are, our [03:50] relationship. I think-- I think [03:54] the truth is that, that if you really care about the quality [03:58] of somebody's life as much as you care about the [04:00] quality of your own, you haven't made, I mean, that's [04:10] [ unk ] better. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3456672/supreme-court-gay-marriage/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3456672/supreme-court-gay-marriage/"},"headline":"Supreme Court Passes on Gay Marriage Debate for Now","datePublished":"2014-10-02T16:02:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:00:34.124Z","description":"The top court could still decide to hear one of the seven gay marriage cases pending before it.","url":"https://time.com/3456672/supreme-court-gay-marriage/","keywords":["Supreme Court","Gay Marriage","same sex marriage","Courts"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd63495a19f4741a1/6986a699e8524bba62605079/168015456.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Noah Rayman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/noah-rayman/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd63495a19f4741a1/6986a699e8524bba62605079/168015456.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"168015456","caption":"Supreme Court of the United States","creditText":"Phil Roeder—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/supreme-court/","name":"Supreme Court"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3456672/supreme-court-gay-marriage/","name":"Supreme Court Passes on Gay Marriage Debate for Now"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Edie and Thea: A Love Story","description":"Edith Windsor reflects on her life with late spouse, Thea Spyer, and the meaning of gay marriage","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Kc02dmNR/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2013-12-11T12:42:18.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Kc02dmNR.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3456672/supreme-court-gay-marriage/","duration":"PT4M37S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3456672/supreme-court-gay-marriage/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```