This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases dealing with gay marriage: the challenges to California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. On the Political Scene podcast, Jeffery Toobin and Margaret Talbot talk with Dorothy Wickenden about how the Court might rule in each case and what the decisions could mean for marriage equality. Click-through for more: http://nyr.kr/XlrxwN

(Source: newyorker.com / The New Yorker)

See each Justice’s most memorable line in the Prop 8 and Defense of Marriage Act cases, as nominated by Amy Davidson: http://nyr.kr/10dgrrc

Richard Socarides looks at the history of gay political powerlessness: http://nyr.kr/Zrxe7v

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Justice Antonin Scalia dropped a bombshell on the Supreme Court today, announcing his decision to resign from the Court “effective immediately” and leave the United States forever. Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/ZDtWl3

millions of users of [Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks] have supplanted their profile pictures with that symbol to display their support and hope that the Justices will rule in favor of marriage equality…

…but how effective is this form of online activism? Matt Buchanan considers: http://nyr.kr/YJO5TP

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Everyone knows that same-sex marriage is here to stay; indeed, it’s expanding throughout the country at a pace that few could have imagined just a few years ago. The justices were not irrelevant to the process, but they weren’t central either. They knew that—and so did everyone else.

Jeffrey Toobin on why the gay-marriage fight is over: http://nyr.kr/ZBkSNA

Photograph by Jewel Samad/Getty.

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Plus, read our full coverage of gay marriage before the Supreme Court…

Whatever the outcome in the Proposition 8 case, it was a relief to many that in the DOMA case, the Court seemed fully ready to engage in a discussion of how Congress could have decided to regulate marriages, traditionally the province of state regulation, and in doing so cut out a whole group of people.

Richard Socarides writes about Wednesday’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court and explains why it was a good day for Edith Windsor, the plaintiff, and for gay-rights advocates:  http://nyr.kr/XHr5or

Photograph by Joshua Roberts.

(Source: newyorker.com)

In today’s Daily Comment, Jeffrey Toobin explains why the Prop 8 decision likely comes down to Justice Kennedy : “It was Kennedy—the swing vote—who was most concerned about a broad ruling. He said, ‘The problem with the case is that you’re really asking, particularly because of the sociological evidence you cite, for us to go into uncharted waters, and you can play with that metaphor, ‘There’s a wonderful destination,’ ‘It is a cliff.’’ Neither seemed like a place Kennedy wanted to go.” Continue reading

Photograph of opponents of same-sex marriage outside the Capitol as the Supreme Court heard Prop 8 oral arguments on Tuesday, by Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images. 

Read our full coverage of gay marriage before the Supreme Court. 

Margaret Talbot on the scene outside the Supreme Court today: “What is marriage for? How do children fare in families headed by same-sex couples? To what extent is sexual orientation inborn and immutable? They’re fascinating questions, but they can hardly be settled in oral arguments of less than an hour and a half … Outside the Court today, all those bigger questions were very much alive.” Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/10gwK6v

Same-sex-marriage supporters in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on March 26, 2013, in Washington, DC. Photograph by Jewel Samada/AFP/Getty. 

(Source: newyorker.com)