Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Va., who’s been watching same-sex marriage cases around the country, said today’s U.S. Supreme Court order means Justice Anthony Kennedy referred the stay question to the full Supreme Court for review, and the full court rejected the stay. “I think that shows that the only chance for cert is an appeal that holds a ban is constitutional,” he said. “Cert” is short for “certiorari,” the process by which the high court agrees to take up an appeal.

“The heightened scrutiny argument was an attempt to pique the Court’s interest and it is creative,” Tobias said, referring to the state’s arguments submitted to the high court. “However, it did not secure a stay and all the Attorney General can do now is delay the inevitable by running out all the procedural options, wasting time, money and energy and making many people unhappy.”