SCOTUSblog rounds up opinions on the marriage equality case before the Supreme Court:
Today the Court hears oral arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the case involving a challenge to California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage. At this blog, Amy Howe provides background of the case in “Plain English.” Other coverage of the case comes from Nina Totenberg at NPR, Adam Liptak of The New York Times, and David G. Savage and Maura Dolan at the Los Angeles Times. In an op-ed for The New York Times, David Cole urges the Court to rule narrowly, writing that “[p]rudence counsels that marriage equality should be allowed to continue gaining support in the states, and that a federal resolution should be left for another day.” The editorial boards of The New York Times and The Washington Post write, by contrast, that the time has come for the Court to declare equal rights for all couples. At Reason.com, Ilya Shapiro and Jonathan Adler offer differing viewpoints on federalism and same-sex marriage in the context of Hollingsworth. Linda Feldmann of The Christian Science Monitor writes that the presence of the Chief Justice’s cousin at oral arguments is significant in that it shows that he “has had the opportunity to consider the issue of gay marriage through the experience of a family member, like many Americans.”
Continue reading here. A good site to keep up with the case and arguments in the courtroom.
Susan Forsburg, frequent commenter at Episcopal Café and keeper of Friends of Jake blog writes:
The question now is whether California can legally deny the word “marriage” to devoted couples in legal partnerships. The crux is what the goal of Prop8 was, and since all it did was take away the word, and not other aspects of marriage, its achievement is purely to make gay people “less than”.
Then, on Wednesday, the court will hear arguments on DOMA, the federal law that prevents legally married same sex couples like me and my wife from the over 1300 federal rights and benefits of marriage. This one seems pretty clearly a fail on the constitutional issue of equal protection, but we’ll see.