The couples’ lawyers added that a stay would inflict deep harm. “If a stay issues,” they said, the couples “will continue to be denied the right to enter into or have recognized the most important relation in life; they will continue to lack critical legal protections for their families, such as spousal-visitation and medical-decision-making rights in hospitals, that different-sex couples have long enjoyed; and their children will continue to be deprived of the security of knowing that their parents’ relationships are recognized by the state where they live.”