Vegas bets on same-sex marriage

It appeared at the weekend that Nevada’s bet on same-sex marriage was a winner after all. Wedding bells had begun ringing in chapels looking for business after a brief halt ordered by one U.S. Supreme Court justice.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority placed a full page ad in USA Today featuring two groom cake-toppers with a view of Vegas in the background.

For Nevada it is a business issue, not a religious one. Many tourists from around the world come to Nevada to get married. And tourism in general has been down due to the worldwide recession in recent years.

It was not clear that wedding chapels in Las

Vegas and Reno, and other Nevada cities, would be making any distinctions on who could be married. It appeared that anyone who stays in Vegas can get married there.
Plenty of tourists buy legal marijuana in Colorado.

The “Wedding Chapel” in Las Vegas advertises online: “Why Get Married in Las Vegas.

First, Getting Married in Las Vegas is very simple. Second, Las Vegas is the number one wedding destination in the world. Third, ITS LAS VEGAS! The airfare is always reasonable, hotel accommodations are plentiful, and obtaining Las Vegas Marriage License is a simple process with no waiting periods or blood testing requirements.”

The courts’ confusion has made the situation very unclear. Will marriages in states that allow same-sex marriages be legal in other states, or only in the 30-plus states in which it is now legal.

Same-Sex Marriage review 
In more than half of the states the marriages are only legal because of court intervention.

North Carolina became the latest state to legalize gay marriage after a federal judge on Friday afternoon ruled a ban created by state voters unconstitutional.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court itself overturned Justice Anthony Kennedy’s order halting gay marriages, with no comment.

Kennedy not only was not speaking for the court, he had erroneously reinstated a gay marriage ban in Idaho and Nevada, when only Idaho was at issue.

What the New York Times and others had called the “tacit” approval of gay marriage effectively was just that after the Friday morning Supreme Court decision and the ruling of U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn of Asheville, N.C.

Cogburn rejected the most recent voter-approved ban on gay marriages, saying it clearly violated constitutional protections that all Americans will be treated the same.