A 5-4 vote in favor of same-sex couples’ marriage rights appears to be the most likely outcome, although Chief Justice John Roberts’ vote shouldn’t be counted out.
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At Tuesday's marriage arguments over same-sex couples' marriage rights, the majority of the court appeared to be comfortable with Justice Anthony Kennedy's understanding of human dignity as including gay people's equal treatment under the law.
While Kennedy, who is considered the key swing vote in the case, did not make any unambiguous statement about the end result of the case, he harshly questioned the state of Michigan's argument that it should be allowed to exclude same-sex couples from marriage.
At one point, Kennedy commented to Michigan's lawyer that it's law banning same-sex couples from marrying "assumes" that those couple's can't have the same "more noble purpose" as opposite sex couples have for entering marriage.
Joined often by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the lawyer defending marriage bans, John Bursch, faced repeated questions about what other limits state's could constitutionally place on marriages and whether the state's claimed interest amounted to anything more than, as Sotomayor asked, a "ceiling...that doesn't have logic."
Although questions were asked, including by Kennedy, about the length of the understanding of marriage as only an institution between one man and one woman, Kennedy also noted that "about the same time" passed between the Supreme Court's decision ending "separate-but-equal" with regards to racial discrimination and it's landmark decision ending interracial marriage as has passed between the Supreme Court's decision ending sodomy laws and today's arguments.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer also appeared in questioning to be sympathetic same-sex couples' marriage arguments.
Chief Justice John Roberts asked probing question of both sides, never betraying a strong affinity towards either sides' arguments.
There are two questions before the court Tuesday -- whether the 14th Amendment requires states to permit same-sex marriage and whether states that don't allow same-sex marriage must recognize those marriages performed in other states.
Tuesday's arguments followed a winding path for the cases, the first of which (an adoption case out of Michigan) was filed in 2012. The remaining cases were all filed in the aftermath of the June 2013 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.
The decision in the cases came over several months, and by the summer of 2014, the cases for marriage or marriage recognition had won in all four states of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee).
That August, the appellate court took up the four states' appeals. When the 6th Circuit became the first appellate court to uphold marriage bans since Windsor, Supreme Court review looked almost certain, and the justices accepted the cases for review in January, setting up Tuesday's arguments.
A decision in the cases will likely be released at the end of the court's term in June.
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/1Jy7bru
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