Full audio from today's Supreme Court hearing on same-sex marriage

mudtea

There are two parts:

Does 14th Amendment require marriage equality? (90 minutes)
Does 14th Amendment require interstate recognition of same sex marriages? (50 minutes)

http://www.lambdalegal.org/scotusoralarguments

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I think a lot of us would've loved to hear more on 'this' or better rebuttal to 'that,' but one thing that continued to crop up was this notion of some consistent definition of marriage for "millenia." Throughout the first question (I haven't yet listened to the second), the strongest argument put forth by some justices (talk about judicial activism) seemed to be, "but that's the way it's always been (totally not true), therefore that's the way it should be from here on." Nevermind that silly little idea of equal protection.

Zyphun

I have been following this as much as I can. The kind of things said by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Bonauto, and Alito were just plain insulting and bigoted. It does not give me much hope, but there is a sliver there yet. Equality seems to exist only for wealthy white christian men. Of course, the cynic in me knew that already.

peacehawk

I listened to the whole thing with a few friends from church, and my partner (not yet wife). All of us were jumping out of our seats over the millenia thing. And, why the heck didn't the lawyer point out that Native American tribes (the first Americans-and some would argue the only true Americans) have had same sex unions, and have honored two spirit people theoughout time. And, they kept saying it hasn't changed. HA! Ruth Bader Ginsburg sure hit some homeruns though on that front.

Did anyone else notice that the only female lawyer was only allowed two sentences into her spiel before she was interrupted and her entire time was dominated by the justices yapping? We were so frustrated, all of us noticed that sexist attituses of shutting up women were aluve and well in that room. I was especially surprised that Ginsburg was the first to interrupt, but the men ran with it from there, as if Bonnanato was done talking. So frustrating.

And, everyone knows that Kennedy is the swing vote on the bench. I think he really wants to rule in our favor, but isn't sure he can justify it since the voters voted for the nams. He is not a fan of judicial activism (as some call it). He is fairly conservative when it comes to interpreting the constitution to be more inclusive. I think he will look to the Loving v Virginia case, which stated that marriage is a fundamental right and use that as his justification to vote in oyr direction.

And, let's not forget chief justice Roberts, who almost always votes in the conservative block with Thomas, Scalia and Alito. However, during the DOMA case (Winsor), he invited his lesbian cousin to come sit front and center during the proceedings. I believe he was on the majority side of that one, but I can't remember. He may actually lean our way and surprise some people.

We definitely have Gonsburg, Bader, Sotomayor and I can't remember the 4th one.

Come on late June already. It's time for the US to stand on the side of love, justice and equality.