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DENVER (AP) — Wednesday's gay marriage ruling contained two historic firsts: It was the first appellate decision for gay marriage since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Law exactly one year ago, and it also marked the first time since then a federal judge has argued for keeping a state ban on same sex marriages.

Justice Paul J. Kelly, Jr. was in the minority in his opinion as the two other judges on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals panel found the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of gay couples to marry. Kelly has broken the string of 16 state and federal judges who sided with gay marriage advocates in cases across the country over the past year.

Legal observers and friends both say that's not a surprise. "He's not afraid to be the only guy taking a position if he believes it's correct," said Hal Stratton, a former New Mexico Attorney General who served with Kelly in the state legislature in the late 1970s.

Kelly, 73, is a Republican and appointee of President George H.W. Bush who is known for his fondness for bow ties, withering questioning at oral argument and willingness to rule against law enforcement and for civil rights. On Wednesday, in his 21-page dissent, Kelly warned that his colleagues were overreaching in striking down Utah's voter-approved gay marriage ban.

Creating a national mandate for gay marriage, even in states where it is unpopular, "turns the notion of a limited national government on its head," he wrote, adding later: "We should resist the temptation to become philosopher-kings, imposing our views under the guise of constitutional interpretation of the 14th Amendment."

The dissent heartened gay marriage opponents, who saw a hope of ending their year-long losing streak and puncturing the aura of inevitability that now surrounds same-sex marriage. "We are at a new level and the Courts of Appeal tend to be more thoughtful and deliberate than the trial courts," said National Organization for Marriage president John Eastman, saying he expects more opinions like Kelly's.

It did not surprise Blain Myhre, a Denver appellate attorney who has argued multiple cases before Kelly. "He may have a more limited view of the role of the federal courts than a more liberal judge," Myhre said. But, he added, "I don't view him as an ideologue."

Nancy Leong, a University of Denver law professor who watches the circuit, said she was surprised because Kelly has been sympathetic to some plaintiffs alleging discrimination based on their gender or disabilities. "I was especially surprised that he was willing to become the first judge to say we shouldn't strike down a same-sex marriage ban."

Kelly has never been afraid of charting his own course. The son of a prominent judge in Long Island, New York, he graduated from Notre Dame University and then Fordham law school and took a job in the small, remote southeast New Mexican town of Roswell. In 1976, he ran for the New Mexico legislature and won, even though Democrats outnumbered Republicans in his district 2-1, according to an article about him written by a former clerk.

In the statehouse, Kelly was a strong foe of abortion rights but far from a doctrinaire conservative, Stratton recalled. He remembered that, when the legislature reinstituted the death penalty, Kelly inserted several provisions to limit its application.

After two terms, Kelly moved to Santa Fe to run his firm's office there and left elected office. He joined the volunteer fire department in his rural community outside the city and even well into his 60s would dash out of dinners to rescue people from car crashes. In a 2008 interview, Kelly, then 67, told the Santa Fe New Mexican he worked out four times a week. "I work to keep up with the younger guys ... We're swinging axes at metal walls and if you didn't keep in shape, you'd die."

President Bush appointed Kelly to the 10th Circuit in 1991. His highest-profile case was when he presided over Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's appeal. U.S. marshals accompanied him and his wife on an airplane from Albuquerque for the hearings in Denver, where the circuit is based. In his interview with his former clerk, Kelly also proudly cited his opinion in a 1998 case where he ruled that police cannot offer plea deals in exchange for courtroom testimony. Federal prosecutors and other law enforcement agencies were outraged and the full 10th Circuit reversed Kelly's opinion.

Kelly didn't budge, writing a dissent from the new opinion. "Courts," he wrote, "must apply unambiguous statutes as they are written."

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Associated Press reporter Barry Massey in Santa Fe, N.M. contributed to this report.

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Follow Nicholas Riccardi on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NickRiccardi .

DENVER (AP) — The first ruling by a federal appeals court that states cannot prevent gay couples from marrying makes it more likely the Supreme Court will ultimately have to make a decision it has so far avoided — do states have the ability to prohibit same-sex marriage?

The court danced around that question precisely one year ago when it issued a pair of rulings on gay marriage. At the time, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer warned about the high court trying to enforce societal changes through judicial fiat, with Ginsberg citing the lingering abortion rights battle ever since the court legalized the practice in Roe v. Wade.

The high court's caution was evident in its rulings: It upheld a decision striking down California's gay marriage ban but relied on technicalities rather than finding a national right for same sex couples to marry. Then it struck down parts of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, finding same-sex marriages from states where the practice was legal must be recognized.

That decision triggered an avalanche of 17 straight court decisions upholding the rights of gays to marry, including Wednesday's 2-1 ruling from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, the highest court to weigh in since the Supreme Court. Utah, whose gay marriage ban was struck down in the decision, is considering an appeal to the Supreme Court.

"This tees it up for possible Supreme Court review," said William Eskridge, a law professor at Yale University. "When a federal appeals court strikes down a major state law, there is a lot more pressure for the justices to take that."

There is no guarantee that the Utah case will be the one that makes it to the top court. Five other appellate courts are considering similar cases, and any of those could be the one taken. The soonest a case could be decided is 2015, but often the Supreme Court waits for a split in appellate courts before considering an issue.

"I don't know if the Supreme Court is going to wait for a circuit split as long as it usually does," said Nancy Leong, a law professor at the University of Denver, noting that the recent judicial unanimity on the issue could make that a long wait. Meanwhile, she noted, countless gay couples are eager to marry and less and less willing for the slow pace of the courts.

That was on display in Colorado on Wednesday afternoon, when the county clerk in the liberal city of Boulder announced she would issue same-sex marriage licenses even though the 10th Circuit — which along with Colorado and Utah includes, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Wyoming — stayed its decision pending appeal. The state's attorney general declared the licenses invalid because Colorado's gay marriage prohibition is still the law, but Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall said she would continue to issue them until stopped by a court.

Wednesday's ruling stressed the urgency of overturning gay marriage bans rather than waiting for new laws to be written by elected officials. "Plaintiffs in this case have convinced us that Amendment 3 violates their fundamental right to marry," Justice Carlos Lucero wrote for the majority. "We may not deny them relief based on a mere preference that their arguments be settled elsewhere."

But Justice Paul Kelly argued in his dissent that the 10th Circuit overstepped its authority and that states should be able to decide who can marry.

"We should resist the temptation to become philosopher-kings, imposing our views under the guise of the 14th Amendment," Kelly wrote.

The ruling came down just minutes after a federal judge threw out that Indiana's same-sex marriage ban in a decision that immediately allows gay couples to wed. But the legal significance of the 10th Circuit ruling is far greater because it is one level higher on the legal food chain.

In 2012, an appellate court struck down California's gay marriage ban but said it was only ruling on that law, not the broader constitutional questions. There were no such caveats in Wednesday's 65-page decision.

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said Utah's legal victory was sweeter because of where it originated — a conservative, deeply religious state in the heart of the mountain West.

"What is so powerful here is that we have the first federal appellate court and ... it's a case coming out of Utah affirming in the strongest, clearest, boldest terms that the Constitution guarantees the freedom to marry and equal protection for all Americans and all means all, including gay couples," he said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, said it maintains marriage should be between a man and a woman, but believes "all people should be treated with respect."

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, issued a statement saying judges were treading on dangerous ground by moving so fast.

"The courts, for all their power, can't overturn natural law. What they can do is incite a movement of indignant Americans, who are tired of seeing the foundations of a free and just society destroyed by a handful of black-robed tyrants," Perkins said.

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Online:

Ruling from 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/13/13-4178.pdf

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McCombs reported from Salt Lake City. Associated Press writers Mark Sherman in Washington, Michelle Price in Salt Lake City, Lisa Leff in San Francisco and Kristi Eaton in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

Follow Nicholas Riccardi on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NickRiccardi and Brady McCombs at https://twitter.com/BradyMcCombs .

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran is rushing to try to save one of the world's critically endangered species, the Asiatic cheetah, and bring it back from the verge of extinction in its last remaining refuge.

The Asiatic cheetah, an equally fast cousin of the African cat, once ranged from the Red Sea to India, but its numbers shrunk over the past century to the point that it is now hanging on by a thin thread — an estimated 50 to 70 animals remaining in Iran, mostly in the east of the country. That's down from as many as 400 in the 1990s, its numbers plummeting due to poaching, the hunting of its main prey — gazelles — and encroachment on its habitat.

Cheetahs have been hit by cars and killed in fights with sheep dogs, since shepherds have permits to graze their flocks in areas where the cheetahs live, said Hossein Harati, the local head of the environmental department and park rangers at the Miandasht Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Iran.

At the reserve, rangers are caring for a male cheetah named Koushki, rescued by a local resident who bought it as a cub from a hunter who killed its mother around seven years ago, said Morteza Eslami Dehkordi, the director of Iranian Cheetah Society. "Since he was interested in environment protection, he bought the cub from him and handed it to the Department of Environment," he said. The cheetah was named after his rescuer's family name.

With help from the United Nations, the Iranian government has stepped up efforts to rescue the species — also with an eye to the potential for tourism to see the rare cat.

Rangers have been equipped with night vision goggles and cameras have been set up around cheetah habitats to watch for any threat. They have also been fitting cheetahs with U.N.-supplied GPS collars so their movements can be tracked. Authorities built shelters in arid areas where the cats can have access to water. They've also reached out to nearby communities, training them how to deal with cheetahs and promising compensation for livestock killed by cheetahs to prevent shepherds or farmers from hunting them.

Also, any development projects in cheetah habitats must be approved by Iran's Environmental Department.

The efforts were given a symbolic boost at the ongoing World Cup in Brazil, where Iran's team wore images of the cheetah on their uniform. The country has also named August 31 as Iran's National Cheetah Day since 2006.

Once known as "hunting leopards," Asiatic cheetahs were traditionally trained for emperors and kings in Iran and India to hunt gazelles. They disappeared across the Middle East about 100 years ago, although there were sightings in Saudi Arabia until the 1950s. They vanished in India in 1947 and ranged in Central Asia as far as Kazakhstan up to the 1980s.

Gary Lewis, with the U.N. Development Program, said the dropping numbers in Iran are alarming.

"There are no other Asiatic cheetahs like the one that you have here in Iran, so it is essential for us as human beings to conserve our biodiversity by protecting this animal," he said.

Iran also hopes to attract more foreign tourists under moderate President Hassan Rouhani, who has vowed outreach to the West.

"It is an endangered species. The cheetah is considered to be one of the most charismatic cats," said Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, who heads Iran's Department of the Environment.

"It is important for, for example, our ecotourism when many people who enjoy coming just to visit our natural habitats for the cheetah and to see, to have a glimpse of the cheetah." said Ebtekar. "So we are working very seriously with international organizations as well as our national specialists and experts to protect this species."

African cheetahs are also a threatened species, with an estimated 10,000 adults remaining.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Supreme Court dealt Internet startup Aereo a major setback on Wednesday in ruling that the television-over-the-Internet service operates much like a cable TV company. As a result, the service violates copyright law unless Aereo pays broadcasters licensing fees for offering TV stations to customers' tablets, phones and other gadgets.

Aereo was still operating Wednesday afternoon without paying such fees, as the U.S. District Court in New York must still implement the Supreme Court's findings. But Aereo's options are limited. The ruling may also affect other Internet services, though the Supreme Court did try to limit the scope of its decision.

Here's a closer look at the ruling and what it means for Aereo and Internet users.

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Q: What does the ruling say?

A: Aereo streams television shows to customers in New York and 10 other markets. It has claimed that the service is legal because each customer is temporarily assigned an individual antenna about the size of a dime, so it's akin to customers putting up their own antennas on rooftops. By contrast, cable systems typically have one antenna serving thousands of customers in an area.

The Supreme Court rejected Aereo's argument, saying that it acts like a cable system. Aereo's use of individual antennas, the court says, "does not make a critical difference." As a cable system, the court says, Aereo must pay the same retransmission fees that broadcasters demand from cable and satellite TV providers.

Q: Why is Aereo still operating?

A: Although the Supreme Court expressed its thinking on the law, it's the lower court that must issue a preliminary injunction stopping the service, as requested by broadcasters. That could take a few weeks. It's not guaranteed that the lower court will halt Aereo's operations, but it's very likely.

Once an injunction is issued, broadcasters must prove copyright infringement during a trial. Because it's now likely that broadcasters will ultimately prevail, Aereo might simply decide to shut down. Even then, broadcasters might still decide to pursue the case and seek damages, possibly as a message to future entrepreneurs contemplating video services that don't involve licenses.

Q: What's the big deal? Couldn't Aereo simply pay the licensing fees and continue to operate?

A: Yes, although broadcasters and Aereo would have to negotiate the amount. Disputes over fees have frequently resulted in channels temporarily disappearing from various cable and satellite lineups. Broadcasters aren't likely to offer Aereo friendly terms, especially if doing so would alienate the cable and satellite providers from which broadcasters already generate much more revenue.

It's also not clear whether Aereo can really afford it. Aereo's service starts at $8 a month, which is much cheaper than cable. The company spends much of that on equipment such as antennas and computers, along with leasing indoor and outdoor space to house all that. If Aereo starts paying fees to broadcasters, monthly subscription rates would likely have to go up significantly— the way cable bills have steadily increased over the years.

Q: What will Aereo do?

A: In a statement, Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia vowed to "continue to fight for our consumers and fight to create innovative technologies." However, he didn't offer specifics. The statement also said nothing about how long Aereo plans to keep operating and whether it will offer refunds if it shuts down.

In a spring interview with The Associated Press, Kanojia insisted the company had no backup plan, but had assets it could sell off, such as the technology powering the service.

Q: What does this mean for other Internet video services?

A: Licensed video services such as Netflix and Hulu won't be affected at all. This case is about content that hasn't been licensed, and it might discourage future entrepreneurs from experimenting with unlicensed services, even if they are ultimately legal under fair use or other aspects of copyright law.

"Anyone who wants some degree of certainty about the legality of the business needs to make sure content holders get paid, not just in broadcasting, but in other areas of the marketplace as well," says Bruce Ewing, an intellectual property lawyer at Dorsey & Whitney.

There might be cases where unlicensed content is legal, he says, but "who's going to invest money in this?"

Q: What about other Internet-based services, such as Dropbox, Google Drive and others that let you store content online?

A. Aereo and its supporters had warned that a ruling against Aereo could kill other Internet-based storage services because, like Aereo, they store digital copies of content and deliver it to customers on request.

The Supreme Court tried to limit the scope of its ruling by saying that context matters. For instance, it isn't necessarily illegal for a service to store content that the customer actually owns, which is the case with many Internet storage services. And if distribution is limited to just relatives and a small social circle, that likely doesn't count as a public performance that violates copyright law.

"Trouble is, any time the Supreme Court acts, its actions have effects and implications that extend well beyond the case," says Harry Cole, a communications regulations lawyer at Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth. "No matter what the justices say, lawyers read these cases and try to figure out what exactly is being said."

In other words, the Supreme Court offered some guidance but left a lot open for future lawsuits.