Supreme Court could decide today if it will hear Michigan same sex-marriage case

April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, a lesbian couple of Hazel Park that first sued Michigan over the state’s same-sex marriage ban in 2013, recently sought a review of their lawsuit from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now, as early as Jan. 9, the high court could decide if it will hear the couple’s case. If the court opts to hear the case, it would cap a journey for DeBoer and Rowse that began in 2013 when the couple first challenged a Michigan law that says only married couples and single people can adopt children.

Some background: Rowse had legally adopted 4-year-old Nolan and 3-year-old Jacob; DeBoer adopted Ryanne, 3. But the couple realized that had no legal right to their partners’ children, if, in the worst case scenario, one of them died.

The federal judge who heard the case in Michigan said the issue at-hand was the state’s same-sex marriage ban. Last March, the judge, Bernard Friedman, overturned the ban. But Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette appealed the judge’s ruling to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned Friedman’s decision and upheld Michigan’s gay marriage ban.

If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, that means the national issue of marriage equality could be resolved by the end of the court’s session in July 2015 once and for all.