Few issues divide the nation into partisan wings in the manner that gay marriage does. But this October, the nation’s highest court denied review of several lower court decisions that supported the rights of marriage equality.

“It [when the Supreme Court doesn’t hear a case] can mean a lot of things, but one of the big things is: is it a federal question?” social studies teacher and former SMU law student Homa Lewis said. “Is it something that they should take?”

In the wake of 2013 landmark cases by the Supreme Court such as the ruling against DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), the Court’s decision not to act on lower-court rulings against gay marriage bans in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin often means one thing.

“They felt that the lower courts had made correct rulings,” Lewis said. “There was nothing for them to do.”

Others are criticizing the court for not making a decisive ruling.

“The court’s delay in affirming the freedom to marry nationwide prolongs the patchwork of state-to-state discrimination and the harms and indignity that the denial of marriage still inflicts on too many couples in too many places,” the president of Freedom to Marry said in a New York Times interview.

Part of the reasoning behind the decision may be hesitation from the courts to act until the issue expands to more of the nation.

“The more liberal justices have been reluctant to press this issue to an up-or-down vote until more of the country experiences gay marriage,” former acting United States solicitor general Walter Dellinger III said in a New York Times interview. “Once a substantial part of the country has experienced gay marriage, then the court will be more willing to finish the job.”

Texas is one of the 20 states that still bans the marriage of same-sex partners, but the Lone Star state may find this court sequence adds pressure against its position.

“What will happen [is that] if the couples that are already in the Texas legal system trying to get Texas to change the law,” Lewis said. “If they go to court and if they appeal, and if a court of appeals upholds their right to be married and knocks out the Texas ban, Texas will have to allow marriages between same-sex partners.”

By failing to consider the question on a nationwide level, the inaction by the Supreme Court can still represent a step towards marriage equality.

“What I think and from the things that I’ve read, what it’s saying is that the states that have had their courts gone to the courts of appeal where judges have said that it’s all right for same-sex partners to get married,” Lewis said. “That by the Supreme Court not doing anything, it’s saying that if there’s a challenge, the states are going to lose. So, it’s a way of without actually having to make a decision and rule on a case, by their inaction, they’re saying that the state acts are probably going to be knocked down, and they’re okay with that.”