[JURIST] Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett [official website] announced [press release] on Wednesday that he will not appeal a federal court ruling [opinion, PDF] that struck down [JURIST report] the state’s ban on same-sex marriage [JURIST backgrounder]. Corbett stated [AP report] that the ruling, authored by Judge John Jones E. Jones III [official profile], goes against his political and religious beliefs. However, Corbett said that he would not appeal the ruling because he felt such an effort would likely fail:

Given the high legal threshold set forth by Judge Jones in this case, the case is extremely unlikely to succeed on appeal. Therefore, after review of the opinion and on the advice of my Commonwealth legal team, I have decided not to appeal Judge Jones’ decision.

After Jones’ ruling on Tuesday, Pennsylvania became the nineteenth state in which same-sex marriage is legal.

Tuesday’s ruling follows a similar ruling in Oregon [JURIST report] Monday. Since the US Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] last June that Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) [text; JURIST news archive] was unconstitutional, numerous state and federal courts have struck down same-sex marriage bans. Appeals have followed, and many speculate that the issue will wind up before the US Supreme Court.