Supreme Court Will Consider Same-Sex Marriage
Posted at 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 10, 2012
Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog looks at the two petitions the Supreme Court has accepted on same-sex marriage and the questions that the Court added to those petitions that may get in the way of a ruling on the underlying issue.
“In the California Proposition 8 case, the Court told lawyers to argue whether the proponents of the amendment to the state constitution had ‘standing’ under Article III. ’Standing’ simply means the right to be in court… The merits argument, if the Court does get to it, is whether the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause bars California from granting homosexual couples a right to marry and then withdrawing that right, or more fundamentally from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.”
“In the DOMA case, the Court told lawyers to argue whether either the Obama Administration (that is, the Executive Branch) or the House of Representatives’ Republican leaders were legally before the Court… In the Court’s new order, it asked whether the GOP lawmakers have ‘Article III standing.’ The merits argument in the DOMA case…is whether Section 3 of that statute violates the right to legal equality for same-sex couples who are legally married under state laws where they live.”
