Justices Reject Case Involving Gay-Lesbian Lifestyles Woman Sued After Losing Job Offer For Planning Weddinglike Ceremony

The Supreme Court spurned a plea Monday for constitutional protection for the private lives of homosexual partners, including their choice to commit themselves to each other in a ceremony such as a wedding.

Without comment, the court rejected a case from Georgia that had been closely watched for any sign that the justices might make constitutional law more tolerant of gay and lesbian couples’ lifestyles.

The dispute involves an Atlanta woman who had been offered a job in the state law department in 1991, only to see the offer withdrawn after officials learned that she planned a weddinglike religious ritual with her lesbian companion.

The woman, Robin Joy Shahar, stressed in her appeal that she was not challenging Georgia’s state law banning same-sex marriage.

No state now recognizes same-sex marriage. But same-sex unions are likely to become a state constitutional right in Hawaii this year through action of the Hawaii Supreme Court. The Hawaii developments have prompted 25 states and Congress to quickly pass laws against homosexual marriage.

Georgia’s state attorney general justified his withdrawal of the job offer to Shahar by arguing that the public would be confused, if she were hired, about the state’s enforcement of Georgia’s laws against homosexuality, including laws that make sodomy a crime and forbid same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court has rejected a constitutional challenge to Georgia’s anti-sodomy law as applied to homosexual activity.

“Inaction on my part,” Michael J. Bowers, the state attorney general, wrote to Shahar, “would constitute tacit approval of this purported marriage and jeopardize the proper functioning of this office.”

In other matters, the court:

Heard lawyers for New York and New Jersey square off over which state can claim Ellis Island, once the nation’s main immigration gateway.

Accelerated its consideration of a dispute over efforts to open the $100 billion local phone market to long-distance companies. At issue is a ruling that struck down federal guidelines for the prices that competitors must pay to connect with local phone companies’ networks.

Refused to revive a lawsuit against the U.S. government over deaths and injuries caused when a U.S. aircraft carrier accidentally fired on a Turkish warship in 1992.