By Tony Mauro, From The National Law Journal

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday placed the same-sex marriage cases from five states on the agenda for discussion at its private conference Sept. 29.

After a flurry of briefing in recent weeks—including petitions filed as recently as Tuesday—the court’s action, reflected on its online docket, means the justices will soon be engaged and thinking about the historic constitutional issue of whether states can ban same-sex marriages.

The filings in cases from Indiana, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Oklahoma will be distributed to the high court’s nine justices for consideration at the so-called “long conference” Sept. 29. That is when the justices meet privately to discuss the hundreds of petitions that have piled up over the court’s summer recess awaiting the court’s decision whether or not to grant review.

The distribution does not mean, however, that the court will immediately announce its decision when the Sept. 29 conference ends.

With cases the court decided to hear last term, the justices appeared to develop a practice of holding them for a week or more before announcing the disposition, possibly to give justices more time to examine whether the cases have procedural or other flaws. The justices could also hold the cases without acting, in anticipation of others being filed later on the same issue.

Adam Umhoefer, executive director of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, said Wednesday that the court’s distribution of the cases for consideration at conference “brings us one step closer to our mission of marriage equality for all Americans. Our Constitution’s guarantee of liberty and equality soon will be realized for all loving and committed couples, no matter what state they reside in.”

IMAGE: Demonstrations for and against same-sex marriage outside the U.S. Supreme Court on the day of arguments in the case challenging California’s Prop 8 legislation. March 26, 2013. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ

For more on this story go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202669641470/Justices-Set-Date-to-Review-SameSex-Marriage-Petitions#ixzz3D0sxRNbw