WASHINGTON: The Supreme Court today declined to hear appeals from five states that were challenging lower-court rulings legalizing same-sex marriage. By passing on that debate, the court gave a final legal stamp of approval to marriage equality in five states: Indiana, Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia and Wisconsin. It also set the stage for legalization in six other states that also fall under the lower courts' jurisdiction: Colorado, Wyoming, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

More of the same appeals are before the count, and when these are also declined, sixty percent of the states and the District of Colombian will allow same sex couples to marry.

Particularly interesting in today's ruling is that Utah, home of and a state with the great percentages of Mormons, will be marrying gay people For me a personal satisfaction came when Virginia had one of the first same sex marriages on the steps of the Arlington Court House, just two blocks from where we used to live and where Apollo Network first went on line 17 years ago.