Same-sex unions take center stage at high court
REUTERS
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court’s arguments on Tuesday over same-sex marriage will cap more than two decades of litigation and a transformation in public attitudes.
Based on the court’s actions during the past two years, a sense of inevitability is in the air: that a majority is on the verge of declaring gay marriage legal nationwide.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s pivotal member on gay rights, has been marching in this direction with opinions dating to 1996. In his most recent gay rights decision for the court in 2013, rejecting a legal definition of marriage limited to a man and
Polls over past decade support gay marrieage
woman for purposes of federal benefits, Kennedy deplored that U.S. law for making gay marriages “unequal.”
That 5-4 decision did not address a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, but lower court judges interpreted the ruling as an endorsement of it and began invalidating state bans.
When states appealed rulings striking down their same-sex marriage prohibitions, the Supreme Court declined to intervene, most notably in October 2014 when it denied appeals in seven cases on a single day.
Instead, the nine justices are hearing in Tuesday’s oral arguments an appeal of the sole decision from a regional U.S. appeals court that went the opposite way. Last November, the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld gay marriage bans in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee.
With 37 of the 50 states now permitting gay marriage, many because of judicial orders, it seems unlikely the country’s highest court would reverse course. Public opinion polls over the past decade have shown large increases in support for gay marriage. A ruling is due by the end of June. KEY SWING VOTE Yet some questions remain. How much will Kennedy, a member of the court’s five-man conservative bloc who often casts decisive votes in close cases, show his hand in the 2½ hours of oral arguments? Will he reveal a clear view that the Constitution gives gay people a right to marry, or will he voice concerns for state interests in controlling marriage laws?
An element of uncertainty hovers over Chief Justice John Roberts, who broke with the other court conservatives and cast the deciding vote upholding President Barack Obama’s health care law in 2012. Roberts voted against gay rights in the 2013 ruling. But he separated himself from the most conservative dissenters and declined to declare outright that states may ban gay marriage.