Tag Archives: Same-sex marriage

What Now for Same-Sex Marriage in Utah?

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The Supreme Court pushed the “pause” button on gay marriage in Utah yesterday, preventing any new marriages between same-sex couples from taking place until the case has been decided on appeal by the Tenth Circuit. Let’s take a second to unpack the justices’ order:

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OK, so there’s not a whole lot to unpack here. The grant indicates that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Circuit Justice in charge of handling stay applications arising from the Tenth Circuit, referred Utah’s request to the full court instead of deciding it herself. This was an expected outcome–as mentioned in my previous post explaining the stay application process, full-court consideration is the most efficient way to dispose of the request and prevent any “appeals” or resubmissions that could happen when an individual Circuit Justice rules on a stay. That the Supreme Court granted the stay was also not surprising. As Rick Hasen notes here, it was very likely that the Court (including even the justices who would support expanding same-sex marriage rights ((For an example of a Supreme Court justice advocating for an incremental approach to the recognition of a constitutional right, look no further than Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comments on Roe v. Wade. She has repeatedly said that abortion rights should have been settled state-by-state rather than in one fell swoop, which in her opinion had the effect of polarizing the national discussion. A similar argument regarding strategy has played out amongst same-sex marriage proponents.)) ) would want to slow things down on such an important, far-reaching constitutional question.

So what does the grant yesterday tell us about how the Court may rule on the merits in Herbert v. Kitchen, when it is inevitably appealed from the Tenth Circuit? The answer is: very little. We do know that the Court will likely choose to hear the case–based on the requirements for successfully obtaining a stay (also detailed in the flowchart from my previous post), the Court would not have granted Utah its stay unless it thought there was a “reasonable probability” that four justices would grant certiorari when the case eventually winds its way up. We also know from the grant requirements that the full court thought there was a “fair prospect” that five justices might eventually overturn federal district Judge Robert Shelby’s ruling on the Utah same-sex marriage ban, probably because of his game-changing conclusion that same-sex marriage is a fundamental constitutional right–an issue that the Supreme Court itself assiduously avoided addressing in last year’s DOMA and Proposition 8 litigation.

Beyond these questions of probability, however, the grant itself contained no reasoning for the Justices’ decision and addressed none of the substantive arguments brought up by Utah and the same-sex couple plaintiffs, so it is hard to divine how they will rule on the merits. The criteria for granting a stay are different from the standards used for ruling on the substantive questions. The fact that it chose to hit the brakes on same-sex marriage in Utah now does not necessarily mean that the Court will strike down Judge Shelby’s ruling.

A more pressing question created by yesterday’s grant is what happens now to the 1,360 same-sex couples who received marriage licenses from the state–a majority of whom have already used the licenses to get legally married in the seventeen days before the Supreme Court halted the process. Interim Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said in a press conference yesterday afternoon that he “doesn’t know.” These couples are in “legal limbo,” “uncharted territory.”

My personal feeling is that yesterday’s stay should not erase or invalidate the hundreds of same-sex marriages that were legally carried out in Utah in the period between Judge Shelby’s initial December 20 ruling and the Supreme Court order. Up until yesterday, while Utah’s stay request was slowly moving its way up the federal courts, Judge Shelby’s decision striking down Amendment 3 was still controlling in the state, so these marriages did not take place in violation of any court order or state ban. A trickier question is what happens to the couples who obtained marriage licenses legally during those seventeen days but had not actually gotten married by the time that the Supreme Court issued the stay. We should fully expect further “offshoot” litigation on this matter.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Utah is still weighing proposals to bring in outside counsel to help with Kitchen, which will be scheduled for argument before the Tenth Circuit this spring. Outside help would probably be a wise idea, given the state’s well-documented bungling in the last few weeks. That Utah dropped the ball repeatedly on moving its stay application along–first by neglecting to ask Judge Shelby at the litigation stage for a stay of any possible ruling in favor of the same-sex couples, then by running to the Tenth Circuit for an emergency stay before Judge Shelby had even ruled on its request, then by waiting a full week to appeal the Tenth Circuit stay denial to Justice Sotomayor–is the reason why the state is now dealing with such a large number of marriages that may or may not be legal.

[UPDATED] With Utah Stay Application Filed, Ball is Now in the Supremes’ Court [Infographic]

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Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the Supreme Court is set to decide whether same-sex marriages in Utah, which have been conducted since a federal trial judge overturned on December 20 a state ban on such marriages, can continue while the case is being appealed, or whether they must cease for the time being.

After both Judge Robert Shelby and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied its application for an emergency stay, Utah took its request up to the Circuit Justice assigned to the Tenth Circuit, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, on December 31. Justice Sotomayor asked the plaintiffs to submit its response opposing the stay by noon, January 3. Their brief can be found here (courtesy of the Legal Times).

From here, Justice Sotomayor can choose to decide the stay herself, or she can refer the issue to the full Supreme Court. I’ve created a flowchart (click to enlarge) to help explain how a non-capital stay ((As opposed to capital stays, where a convicted individual has received the death penalty–these play out differently because of the nature of such cases)) moves through the federal courts. The magenta box on the left lists out what a party must show in order to obtain a stay.

(This flowchart was created using information from Supreme Court Rule 22 on “Applications to Individual Justices” and the Supreme Court Public Information Office’s “Reporter’s Guide to Applications.” The latter includes a chart showing which Justices are assigned to which Circuits.) 

In terms of where in the process we are right now, Utah’s stay application is at the teal box labeled “Circuit Justice (Justice Sotomayor).”

There has been a lot of speculation in the last few days over whether Justice Sotomayor will keep the stay application for herself or bring in the rest of her colleagues, with many predicting that she will refer it to the full Court. As the chart shows, that seems to be the quickest, most efficient way to dispose of the application–once the full Court has voted on the stay, its decision is final.

Individual Circuit Justice rulings, meanwhile, are theoretically subject to “appeal.” If the Circuit Justice denies the stay, the party petitioning for a stay can resubmit the request to another individual Justice of its choosing (Supreme Court Rule 22.4, however, points out that this tactic is “not favored,” and the Justice to whom the request is resubmitted will usually then refer it to the full court, out of deference to the Circuit Justice and to defuse attempts at “justice shopping”). If the Circuit Justice individually grants the application, the party opposing the stay can then ask the full court to vacate the stay. Now, in practice, the Circuit Justices are accorded a great deal of deference in their individual decisions–Sotomayor, after all, did just individually grant a stay on a separate case two days ago–but the possibility that their rulings might end up being reviewed by the full Court anyway may incentivize them to “share.”

UPDATE: The Supreme Court granted Utah’s request for a stay this morning, halting same-sex marriages in the state until the Tenth Circuit has decided the case on appeal. The one-paragraph order, which can be found here, shows that Justice Sotomayor did in fact refer the stay request to the full court. The Supreme Court did not touch the merits of the case in its grant of the stay, providing no explanation of its decision or analysis of the two parties’ arguments. As Utah’s Fox 13 News reporter Ben Winslow notes, over 900 same-sex marriages have been conducted in the state since Judge Shelby’s initial ruling on December 20. Winslow reports that the Tenth Circuit expects to hear oral argument in the case this March.

After Illinois, Look West for the Next Same-Sex Marriage Battles

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Celebrations at the Chicago Pride Parade in June 2013. Today, Illinois becomes the 16th state (plus Washington, D.C.) to legalize same-sex marriage.

When Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signs a same-sex marriage bill into law today, the Land of Lincoln will officially become the 16th state to grant recognition to same-sex spouses, just one week after Hawaii.

2013 has been a banner year for gay rights activists–in addition to the Supreme Court decisions striking down the federal Defense Of Marriage Act and permitting same-sex marriage in California, the movement has seen the legalization of same-sex marriage almost double at the state level. Nearly one year ago, when the Supreme Court first agreed to hear United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry, only nine states and the District of Columbia recognized same-sex marriage.

Of course, their work is still far from done. After Illinois, the focus will turn west toward New Mexico and Oregon.

Traditionally, states have legalized same-sex marriage through one of three ways: by referendum, through the state legislature, or via a ruling from the state’s judiciary.

New Mexico, the only state that has neither a constitution nor a state law explicitly addressing same-sex marriage, could become the 17th state to legalize such unions, thanks to the third route. Because of the state law’s silence on the matter, eight out of thirty-three counties began issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples after the Windsor and Hollingsworth rulings–eventually prompting all thirty-three New Mexico county clerks to ask the state supreme court for clarification on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. The New Mexico Supreme Court heard oral argument in October 2013 and is expected to hand down a decision by the end of this year.

If the New Mexico Supreme Court rules in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, the state will join Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, California and New Jersey as having decided the issue through a judicial ruling.

Meanwhile, advocates in Oregon are planning to overturn the state constitution’s ban on same-sex marriage through a referendum. The coalition Oregon United For Marriage is in the process of collecting the 116,284 signatures required by next July in order to place the question on the ballot in November 2014. If it succeeds (as of today, it needs only 1,204 more names), there’s cause for optimism: a December 2012 poll showed that 54% of Oregon voters would support marriage equality, versus 40% who would vote against it. Though gay and lesbian couples cannot be legally married in Oregon just yet, the state announced in October 2013 that it would start recognizing valid same-sex marriages from other states.

Should a same-sex marriage initiative pass in Oregon, the state will join Washington, Maine and Maryland as having settled the issue by popular vote.

The Human Rights Campaign anticipates that 40% of Americans will live in a state with marriage equality by the end of 2014.

[Infographic] Supreme Court Rules DOMA Unconstitutional

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In a barn-burner of a decision today, the Supreme Court found unconstitutional the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), striking down the law based on a combination of states’ rights, equal protection and due process arguments. As expected, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion for United States v. Windsor, joined by Justices Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor and Ginsburg. Justices Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Thomas dissented, with the former three each penning his own dissent.

The voiding of DOMA, which had kept the United States government from recognizing married same-sex couples, means that all legally-married couples can now receive the federal benefits allocated based on marital status, regardless of whether your spouse is of the same sex or not. The question of whether you can legally marry a person of the same sex in the first place, however, remains in the hands of the states, as the Court stopped short of declaring same-sex marriage to be a fundamental right.

The above interactive graphic shows key quotes from the justices, pulled from the March oral argument and from today’s ruling. You can scroll over each justice to open up a text box with his/her quotes. The red dot indicates the author of the majority opinion; yellow dots indicate the other justices in the majority; blue dots indicate the dissenters.

Further analysis of the Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor to come.

Some Thoughts on DOMA on the Eve of Supreme Court’s Ruling

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Edie Thea
Thea Spyer and Edie Windsor. Windsor is suing the federal government for the return of over $363,000 that it charged her in federal taxes after she inherited her late wife Spyer’s estate. Had Windsor been married to a man instead of a woman, she would have been exempt from the tax. Picture via CNN.

We are now hours away from the last rulings of the Supreme Court’s term, and we know for certain that we’ll be getting a decision in United States v. Windsor, the challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (as well as Hollingsworth v. Perry, the California Proposition 8 case). On the eve of what will surely be a historic day for gays and lesbians across the country, it’s worth going back and reading the March oral argument for the case. A few points I’d like to make ((With the major caveat, of course, that I realize oral arguments are not always an accurate indicator of the eventual outcome of a case.)):

  • Based on the way the other Justices were falling in line behind his questions at the oral argument and some deduction skills on the part of SCOTUSblog, there’s a decent chance that Justice Anthony Kennedy has the majority opinion in Windsor.
  • Assuming that Windsor isn’t decided on a standing issue (and I freely admit that it could be), I expect a Kennedy opinion to discuss states’ rights. Traditionally, family law has been left exclusively to the states, and Kennedy seemed quite concerned at the oral argument about the federalism issues implicated by DOMA, which orders the federal government not to recognize same-sex marriages even if they are legally recognized by the state. At one point, he reminded Paul Clement, the attorney defending the law: “[DOMA] applies to over 1,100 federal laws… when it has 1,100 laws, which in our society means that the Federal government is intertwined with the citizens’ day-to-day life, you are at real risk of running in conflict with what has always been thought to be the essence of the State police power, which is to regulate marriage, divorce, custody.”
  • Alternatively, if it does reach the merits of Windsor, the Supreme Court could strike down DOMA as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause (i.e. the law is unconstitutional because it singles out same-sex people for unfavorable treatment versus their opposite-sex counterparts). Such a ruling would, going forward, provide heightened legal protections for gays and lesbians in the face of discriminatory laws. However, this is also a much broader and groundbreaking route, and I’m not convinced that Kennedy will take it if he can decide the case based on a narrower states’ rights argument instead.

Associate Justice Elena Kagan Investiture Ceremony

While the lion’s share of attention re: DOMA has been focused on Kennedy (including, of course, this post, which has already given him three bullet points), I also want to highlight a couple of points that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan made at the Windsor oral argument:

        • Ginsburg drew big laughs at the argument when she compared the current state of same-sex marriage to “skim milk”––i.e. not the real thing. Snappy sound bite aside, however, it’s interesting to note that Ginsburg–who by all accounts had a happy, fulfilling marriage to the late tax attorney Martin Ginsburg–was the one justice who focused the most on the everyday effects DOMA has on very real people and very real relationships. Again and again, Ginsburg steered the discussion back to the everyday hardships caused by this law–the loss of benefits, a higher tax burden, the inability to take leave to tend to a sick spouse–implicitly asking her colleagues to think about what a marriage really means. We need to strike down DOMA, she was saying, because it is unconstitutional to subject these Americans to a lower quality of life than what their heterosexual brothers and sisters expect and receive.
        • Whereas Justice Ginsburg made it a point to talk about (to put it in a cheesy way) love being love, Justice Kagan had an equally compelling observation about hate. Kagan’s strategy at oral argument was to focus on the people behind the law rather than the people the law affected. DOMA has no place in our society, Kagan suggested, because there are indications that it was motivated by “fear,” “animus” and “moral disapproval” against gays and lesbians–all constitutionally impermissible reasons for imposing differential treatment on a whole class of people. Memorably, she shut down Paul Clement when he tried to dispute this by reading aloud the House Report for DOMA: “‘Congress decided to reflect an honor of collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality.'”
        • Together, Kagan and Ginsburg’s arguments about the suspect motivations and unjust results of DOMA made for a pretty good one-two punch. Assuming, again, that Kennedy actually has the majority opinion and dispatches DOMA based on a theory of states’ rights, I’m really hoping for a concurrence or two from either (or both) of these Justices, laying the intellectual groundwork for an equal protection decision somewhere down the line.
        • If that is the outcome, we can expect at least one fiery dissent as well. My money’s on Justice Scalia, who just last Friday gave a speech to the North Carolina Bar Association insisting that courts had no business deciding moral issues, which should be left to the political process. (He forgets that mixed-race marriage was also considered immoral back when Loving v. Virginia [the 1967 Supreme Court decision overturning anti-miscegenation laws] was decided, and that it was the Court that pulled public opinion along on this, not the other way around.)

Finally, it bears remembering that exactly ten years ago, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down the criminal convictions of two men who had been arrested and tried under a Texas law that prohibited certain forms of sexual conduct between members of the same sex. In overruling an earlier Supreme Court decision that had upheld the application of state sodomy bans to gay and lesbian sexual activity, majority opinion author Justice Anthony Kennedy invoked the Founding Fathers:

They knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.

In a few short hours, we’ll find out just how committed Kennedy and the rest of the Supreme Court remain to this principle.

 

DOMA likely to fall, but how much further will Kennedy go?

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Edie Arrives in Court

Edith Windsor, the 83-year-old plaintiff challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, arrives at Court with attorney Roberta Kaplan. Picture by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, found via ABC News.

Justice Anthony Kennedy had a choice to make this morning. In deciding the fate of the Defense of Marriage Act, should he go with a theory of federalism that emphasizes respect for states’ rights, or a wider-ranging theory of equality that might result in heightened legal protections for gays and lesbians across the United States?

Kennedy picked the former route and clung tightly to it today in a 110-minute oral argument for United States v. Windsor that put the swing Justice on firmer jurisprudential ground than yesterday’s Proposition 8 case. While the facts of Hollingsworth v. Perry pitted states’ rights and equal protection for gays directly against one another, leaving Kennedy confused as to which of a variety of unpalatable options he should choose, the legal issues in the Windsor case presented no such conflict. Rather, the state’s voters and the law’s challengers aligned in Windsor, where they merely asked the federal government to respect nine states’ decisions to recognize same-sex marriages. Here, the principles of federalism and equal protection both point to the unconstitutionality of DOMA.

Assuming that the Court doesn’t decide the case based on standing grounds, Justice Kennedy seemed perfectly content on Wednesday to limit any eventual ruling to the first question about states’ rights. He repeatedly reminded Paul Clement–the attorney tasked by the House of Representatives to argue in support of DOMA, since the Obama administration refused to defend it–that the right to define marriage (and the rest of family law) is “the essence of the State police power.” Kennedy also expressed concern over the sheer number of federal benefits provided based on marital status–1,100 and counting–noting that this means “the Federal government is intertwined with the citizens’ day-to-day life,” interfering with the state’s traditional “prerogative.”

Despite earlier rulings on gay rights cases that indicated a willingness to extend heightened judicial protections to gays and lesbians under the Fourteenth Amendment–an equality-based argument that would have far greater reach and be far more potent against discriminatory laws than a states’ rights takedown of DOMA–Kennedy appeared very hesitant to reconsider equal protection principles today (an issue on which he had also shown confusion at the Proposition 8 discussion yesterday). Several times during the oral argument, a fellow Justice or attorney would bring up Fourteenth Amendment considerations, and Kennedy would immediately steer them back to the federalism issues.

Sensing that its crucial fifth vote was reluctant to revisit arguments about equality, the liberal wing of the Court was happy to run with Kennedy’s line of thinking and echoed many of his concerns in follow-up questions. (One of the many perks of being a swing justice must be getting to set the tone for the oral argument and watching the rest of your colleagues follow along.) Justice Sotomayor asserted that the states, and not the federal government, control the institution of marriage, Kagan made reference to “historic State prerogatives,” and Ginsburg reiterated Kennedy’s sentiment that DOMA touches “every aspect of life” in a “pervasive” manner.

Kennedy’s hesitation notwithstanding, Justice Kagan in particular seemed intent on exploring heightened legal protection for gays and exposing DOMA as outdated legislation impermissibly based on animus. At one point, she dismantled Paul Clement’s arguments about legitimate government purposes for DOMA–he’d insisted that the federal government passed the law for purposes of uniformity across the states–by reading to him the 1996 House Report that clearly states that DOMA sprang from “moral disapproval” of homosexuality. While this rationale was once constitutional, basing discriminatory laws on disapproval toward a particular group has since been prohibited in 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas, the majority opinion for which was authored by–you guessed it–Anthony Kennedy himself. Clement was forced to backpedal and say that while some legislators may have had “improper motives” for DOMA, not all 84 of the Senators who voted for the law bore animus toward gays and lesbians.

Just as the liberal justices tailored their questions toward Kennedy’s views, the conservative Justices, led by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Scalia, tried to assuage Kennedy’s concerns by pressing Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Jr. and Edie Windsor’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, on states’ rights. Roberts repeatedly asked both parties if there was truly a federalism problem–a bit of a trap for Verrilli in particular, who as the representative of the United States federal government has no interest in ceding too much power to the states–and became audibly annoyed whenever Kaplan or Verrilli attempted to tie their answers to an equal protection argument. While Roberts and Scalia tried to compel the DOMA challengers to say that federal overreach was not really an issue here, Justice Alito brought up the practical point that a DOMA defeat would mean that gay couples could be treated differently whenever they moved across state lines–and therefore, that the equal protection problem is ultimately unavoidable.

Of course, Justice Alito is spot on here. Regardless of how Anthony Kennedy decides to decide this case, marriage equality is spreading throughout the United States, and the Supreme Court will eventually have to decide what level of judicial protection gays and lesbians deserve. As the swing vote firmly in control of the wheel, however, Kennedy has the luxury of slowing down the train if he wants to, and it looks like he’s going to do just that in the name of federalism. It won’t be as big of a step as many had hoped for, but come June we will likely be one tiny step closer to a more perfect union.

“It’s a Magic Word:” Tweets from the Eminently Quotable DOMA Oral Argument

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Today, the Supreme Court heard two hours of arguments in United States v. Windsor, with fifty minutes allotted on the technical question of standing–namely, whether the DOMA case should even be before the Supreme Court at all–and sixty minutes on the merits. Though the Prop 8 case on Tuesday seemed to get the lion’s share of media attention–pictures of the line and the protests outside the Courthouse this morning show a smaller audience than yesterday’s–initial reactions and reports indicate that the DOMA argument and subsequent press conference from plaintiff Edie Windsor are 10,000% more quotable. A collection of tweets recapping the day’s events:

“Uncharted Waters:” Confused By Array of Options, Justices Mull Deciding Proposition 8 Case on Procedural Grounds

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Prop 8 Flag
Picture via Variety.

When all was said and done, there weren’t any major revelations in Tuesday’s oral argument for Hollingsworth v. Perry, but it did set the stage for an interesting two hours of arguments on the Defense of Marriage Act that the Supreme Court will hear today.

Chief Justice John Roberts looked for ways to dispose of the Proposition 8 challenge based on the procedural question of standing–as he has done in so many other cases during his tenure–and at least four of his fellow Justices seemed receptive to that option, dissatisfied with the alternatives that the attorneys before them were offering.

The Prop 8 challengers and the United States government framed this fight as the latest in a long line of struggles for equality, appealing to the liberal wing of the Court as we thought they might. They drew parallels to Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 case that outlawed state bans on interracial marriages. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg–a civil rights pioneer in her own right–reminded Charles Cooper, the lawyer defending Proposition 8, that it was unsound to rely on the Constitutional reasoning of a thirty-year-old Supreme Court decision unfavorable to gay marriage (Baker v. Nelson), given that gender discrimination was barely even recognized back then. Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned Cooper about whether the government had any rational basis to deny gays and lesbians benefits other than marriage, and Justice Elena Kagan repeatedly pressed Cooper to specify the harm that same-sex marriage causes.

And, as expected, Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia did not take kindly to the arguments of the Prop 8 challengers. Scalia managed not to emit any overly damaging sound bites this time–the worst thing he said concerned potential “deleterious effects” of same-sex parenting on children–but got into a testy exchange with anti-Prop 8 attorney Ted Olson. Seeking to make a point about America’s long and treasured history of discriminating against gays, he interrogated Olson on when exactly gay marriage bans became unconstitutional, berating him when Olson attempted to answer with a rhetorical question about interracial marriage prohibitions, and responding triumphantly when Olson admitted that he could not provide a specific day: “Well, how am I supposed to decide the case, then–if you can’t give me a date when the Constitution changes?”

Debates that the public has been having for years spilled over into the courtroom as the Justices extended each side’s arguments to their logical conclusions. They grilled Cooper on why, if procreation is the main point of marriage, the state hasn’t banned marriages between infertile, elderly or incarcerated couples. They asked Olson whether a state could prohibit polygamy or incestuous marriages if marriage is in fact a fundamental right under the Constitution. Neither of the answers that the attorneys provided–a convoluted riff about preventing the evils of infidelity from Cooper, and a muddy distinction drawn by Olson between status and conduct–seemed to satisfy a clear majority of the Justices.

Donald Verrilli
Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in 2008. Picture by the Associated Press, via Cleveland.com.

Though none of the questions came out of left field, there weren’t any obvious winners or losers, as each of the lawyers’ arguments had holes that made several Justices uncomfortable. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Jr., arguing the federal government’s position in support of the Prop 8 challengers, probably fared the worst out of the three attorneys. He took a verbal beating from both liberal and conservative justices over the Obama administration’s dubious stance that states offering civil unions must be made to offer same-sex marriage as well, while states that have never allowed the civil union option should not be required to legalize same-sex marriage. Wouldn’t such an “all or nothing” approach incentivize states to grant their gay citizens no rights instead of some rights, Breyer asked? Verrilli didn’t have a good answer. Then again, as last year’s oral arguments for the Affordable Care Act showed, he doesn’t have to be on his A game for the Justices to find in his favor. Even if the Justices are loath to accept the federal government’s preferred “eight state” course of action, the Obama administration would still celebrate any California-specific result that leaves intact federal district judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling against Prop 8 (or the Ninth Circuit affirmation of that decision).

In the end, it all comes down to Anthony Kennedy, as it has many times before and will again in the future. Justice Kennedy did quite not tip his hand at yesterday’s argument, asking probing questions of both sides. He showed concern over what would happen to the 40,000 children in California with same-sex parents if their fathers and mothers were denied the right to marry, yet balked at the thought of finding a fundamental right to same-sex marriage, warning that the Court was wandering into “uncharted waters.” Kennedy pushed Cooper to concede that he couldn’t think of any specific ways in which same-sex marriage injures society, but also suggested that the case might have been improvidently granted in the first place and should be thrown out based on standing rules. Basically, he appeared to be searching for a rationale to justify a limited rather than broad ruling. Hence, it’s unlikely that the Court will uphold Proposition 8 or make same-sex marriage constitutional across all 50 states–but beyond that, it is unclear what the exact decision is going to be.

Prior to Tuesday’s oral argument, David Boies, Ted Olson’s partner in Hollingsworth v. Perry, had confidently predicted that the Proposition 8 challengers would win the case by at least a 6-3 margin. Emerging from the courthouse into the sunshine yesterday afternoon, however, Olson didn’t sound so sure. “Based on the questions the Justices asked, I have no idea” what the Supreme Court will rule, he said. Most court-watchers don’t, either, but it will be very interesting to see how the Prop 8 arguments over standing, states’ rights and respect for the legislative process play out when the Justices tackle similar questions in the United States v. Windsor DOMA challenge today.

Supreme Court Reactions: Tweets from the Prop 8 Oral Argument

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Oral argument for the California Proposition 8 case has ended in Washington, D.C., and the Supreme Court audio and transcript are now up. It’s pretty inconclusive from today’s session what kind of ruling the Justices are going to come up with, but that didn’t stop the Twittersphere from exploding into varying degrees of rage, joy and punditry. Here is a brief recap in tweet form, culled from legal commentators, journalists and the rest of the peanut gallery:

The Supreme Court Hears Same-Sex Marriage Cases: A Brief Reading List

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Edie Windsor

Edie Windsor. Picture courtesy of the New York Times. 

All eyes are on the Supreme Court this morning as it prepares to finally hear two cases on same-sex marriage, the civil rights issue of our time. Starting shortly after 10 a.m. today, a 60-minute oral argument will be held for Hollingsworth v. Perry, which questions the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 restricting the definition of marriage to one woman and one man. Tomorrow morning, the Justices will hold a 110-minute argument for United States v. Windsor, in which the Supreme Court could strike down the 17-year-old Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) that denies federal benefits to same-sex couples even if their marriages are recognized by the state. (The Court is expected to release the audio recording and transcript for each argument shortly after it ends.)

Given the historical significance of these two cases, it’s not surprising that the Internet has lit up with a maelstrom of commentary on just about everyone and anyone who is even remotely connected to either suit. From current Chief Justice John Roberts to former Justice Harry Blackmun, the marquee duo of lawyers challenging Proposition 8 to the people who have been paid to wait in line since Thursday night for the chance to score seats at the oral arguments, everything SCOTUS-related has come under increasing scrutiny as March 26, 10 a.m. draws near. Lest you are feeling overwhelmed by this deluge of information or just looking to do a little bit of last-minute reading as we wait for the Court to wrap up the day’s oral argument, I’ve compiled some of what I think are the most helpful and informative articles for understanding who’s who and what’s going on:

The Overview: Hundreds of articles have picked apart the individual issues and key players before the Court. For one centralized, concise summary of all the legal issues at stake in Hollingsworth and Windsor, the inimitable SCOTUSblog has two primers from Amy Howe. For a quick-hits list of things to watch for at the arguments, go to CNN’s Matt Smith or Slate’s Emily Bazelon, both of whom have highlighted the most important things to know.

The Plaintiffs of Proposition 8: Unsurprisingly, the media has made much hay of the human interest stories behind these cases. The two couples handpicked from California to challenge Prop 8–Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo–are profiled in USA Today as “workaday couples living the American Dream, with one exception–they can’t marry their partners.” Perry and Stier also recently gave an interview to the Associated Press (found via the Huffington Post) in which they recall how they’ve lived the last four years in a “pins-and-needles way” while litigating their case up to the nation’s highest court.

The Lawyers Challenging Proposition 8: One of the most dramatic storylines in a case chock-full of them has to be the partnership of superstar lawyers David Boies and Ted Olson, who were famously opponents in Bush v. Gore. The conservative Olson, a former Solicitor General for the U.S. under President George W. Bush, was initially met with some skepticism when he announced that he would be joining Boies in the fight against Prop 8; the Los Angeles Times profiles him here. David Boies, for his part, gave an interview to USA Today two weeks ago stating his belief that Hollingsworth v. Perry will be decided in their favor with more than five votes.

The Plaintiffs of DOMA: “I came to New York to let myself be gay.” Edie Windsor, an 83-year-old widow and former IBM engineer who was engaged to Thea Spyer for 40 years and married for two before Spyer’s death, is the subject of an illuminating New York Times piece about her reasons for challenging the federal government. New York Magazine recently compiled a slideshow of pictures from Windsor and Spyer’s life together.

The Lawyer Challenging DOMA: Though Windsor–with her winsome personality, elegant looks and her compelling love story–now looks like what civil rights lawyers would call the perfect plaintiff for same-sex marriage, her case was rejected by a major gay rights organization before being picked up by Roberta Kaplan, an attorney with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Kaplan, who has said that it took her all of five seconds to decide that she wanted to litigate Windsor’s case, explains her reasoning to Advocate.

Justice Anthony Kennedy: The current swing vote on an increasingly polarized Court, Justice Kennedy’s jurisprudence isn’t always easy to pin down, but he has been sympathetic to gay rights in the past. Famously, he cast the deciding vote (and wrote the opinions) in both Romer v. Evans, which threw out a Colorado law barring anti-gay discrimination laws, and Lawrence v. Texas, in which the Court overturned a Texas sodomy law that was used to prosecute a gay couple for consensual sexual activity. Back in December, when the cases were first granted, Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic considered whether Kennedy would go for a broad constitutional ruling or a narrow one in light of his previous rulings. Garrett Epps of The Atlantic writes here that we can expect Kennedy to stick to his record of defending both states’ rights and gay rights.

Justice Antonin Scalia: Just as Kennedy is known for leaning libertarian on gay rights issues, Scalia is quite well-known for his moral opposition to same-sex marriage. The big question going into today and tomorrow’s arguments is what he will say this time about gay marriage, and how offensive it will be. Mother Jones and ABC News have both compiled some of Justice Scalia’s thoughts on same-sex marriage over the years, including pieces of his dissents in Romer and Lawrence, and his now-infamous comments comparing disapproval of homosexuality to disapproval of murder, made during a speech at Princeton in 2012.

The Families of the Supreme Court: Robert Barnes of the Washington Post discusses the love lives and marriages of the Justices, noting that many of them have not chosen the “traditional” marriage or childbearing arrangements that Prop 8 and DOMA supporters trumpet. The Los Angeles Times also brings up the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts has a gay cousin, Jean Podrasky, who will be in attendance at the oral arguments this week in the ‘families and friends of SCOTUS’ section. Podrasky told the LA Times: “I believe he sees where the tide is going… I absolutely trust that he will go in a good direction.”

The Shadow of Roe v. Wade: When the DOMA and Prop 8 suits were first filed, many wondered whether pushing same-sex marriage through the courts rather than the state-by-state legislative process was a mistake, pointing to the cautionary tale of Roe v. Wade, which polarized the debate on abortion. The New York Times writes on the shadow of Roe here.

The Forerunners: Linda Greenhouse of the NYT delves into the notes of the late Justice Harry Blackmun (the author of Roe v. Wade) to ascertain his thoughts on same-sex marriage, an issue that the Supreme Court wouldn’t even touch while Blackmun was on the bench in the 1970’s. Greenhouse also highlights the story of Jack Baker and James McConnell, a Minnesota couple who took their state to court in 1970 for their right to marry each other, and reflects on how much public opinion has changed since then.

The Public: Public support for same-sex marriage has snowballed in the last year, and it’s impossible to think that the Justices haven’t noticed. The Pew Research Center found in a March 2013 poll that support had swelled to a high of 48% (versus 43% of respondents who were opposed to same-sex marriage). NPR has created a timeline tracking same-sex marriage in the courts and in pop culture here.  Meanwhile, sensing this change in the air, members of Congress have been tripping over each other to announce their support for same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court speaks, as TIME reports. Mother Jones has compiled a timeline of politicians’ about-faces on this issue.

The People Standing in Line: SCOTUSblog reported last week that people were lining up outside of the courthouse for oral argument seats as early as Thursday night, and the media promptly descended. One man tells the National Journal that he has conducted over 200 interviews while waiting in line. Meanwhile, Adam Liptak and SCOTUSblog trade barbs over the fact that at least some of those in line were paid to stand (or, sit) there by wealthier lawyers who want a seat at the historic hearings but not the five-day wait.

The Possible Outcomes:  Finally, the New York Times has a very helpful infographic here about the possible ways in which the Supreme Court could decide both cases, and what states each outcome would affect.