The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has AGAIN denied the state of Utah’s request to stop same-sex couples’ marriages in Utah. “Having considered the district court’s decision and the parties’ arguments concerning the stay factors, we conclude that a stay is not warranted,” Judges Jerome Holmes and Robert Bacharach wrote in an order signed by court clerk Elisabeth Shumaker for the court.

The denial means that a Friday decision by Judge Robert Shelby striking down the state’s ban on same-sex couples marrying will remain in place, for now.

But Mormon and GOP controlled Utah refuses to give up and the state plans to appeal to the high court Thursday, seeking an immediate stop to gay and lesbian couples from being granted marriage licenses.

Each circuit court is assigned to a particular Supreme Court justice for appeals. Utah will appeal to Justice Sonia Sotomayor.  Sotomayor will have the option of considering the state’s request herself or referring it to the full court. If she considers and denies the state’s request for a stay, Utah’s last option would be to appeal to the full Supreme Court.

Legal experts predict that the chances of getting a stay from Justice Sotomayort are slim to none after the rulings from the two lower courts that already refused to stop same-sex marriages in Utah.

Sonia Sotomayor was also in the majority of striking down the key section of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the misnamed anti-gay-marriage law enacted almost seventeen years ago .