Not sure what choice the judge had in this after SCOTUS didn’t hear the appeal of the Ninth Circus.
The only place left for the battle and a chance of a SCOTUS hearing are the 11th and 5th Circuits. Otherwise, it’s not looking good.
The Sixth Circuit is expected to rule on its case shortly. Oral arguments have yet to occur in the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits. The Eighth Circuit doesn’t even have a District Court decision to rule on. The question is whether any two conservative judges on those panels want to be the ones to force the Supreme Court to nationalize gay marriage. Even a strong social conservative might hesitate — in part because the Circuit decisions are so disparate in their reasoning that there really is no clear rule of law that can be extracted from them to compel even more departure from traditional social mores, but a Supreme Court decision coraling them will produce such a rule.