Supreme Court to Hear Same-Sex Marriage Cases March 26th and 27th

The U.S. Supreme Court has scheduled two potentially-historic cases concerning same-sex marriage for oral arguments on Tues., Mar. 26, and Wed., Mar. 27. The cases are Hollingsworth v. Perry and U.S. v. Windsor.

Hollingsworth is the case regarding California’s Prop 8, asking whether the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution confers a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, and therefore forbids any state from defining marriage as the union of a man and woman in either state law or its state constitution. This case will be argued Tuesday.

Windsor is the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) case, specifically concerning Section 3 of DOMA, which provides that for purposes of federal law (such as immigration or Social Security benefits) marriage is defined as one man and one woman. This case will be argued Wednesday.

Normally during March, the Court hears two cases per day, and most cases receive exactly 60 minutes of argument time. The Court is only hearing one of these cases on each day, and not scheduling additional cases. While right now the Court has not granted extended time, given the historic significance of these cases, it looks like the Court may be keeping open the option of giving the lawyers extra time on both days.

I will be in the courtroom for Breitbart News and will file reports after arguments on both days.

Ken Klukowski is legal columnist for Breitbart News.