corrinne whiz: Hollingsworth v. Perry: Full Transcript Of Oral Arguments On Gay Marriage Released

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The Dallas Morning News reports:

Gov. Rick Perry reiterated his stance against same-sex unions as the U.S. Supreme Court hears two arguments this week that looks at recognition of gay marriage.
?In Texas, it is fairly clear about where this state stands on that issue,? Perry said when asked by reporters about the Supreme Court cases.
?As recently as a constitutional amendment that passed ? I believe, with 76 percent of the vote. The people of the state of Texas, myself included, believe marriage is between one man and one woman,? Perry said.

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Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the nation's only openly gay senator, plans to attend the Supreme Court's oral arguments on the Defense of Marriage Act on Wednesday. In a statement, she reflected on the progress the nation has made since she entered public service and said she is excited to attend the proceedings:

This is a historic week in the U.S. Supreme Court, where they will hear two important cases on marriage equality. Our country has made great progress since I first entered public service and was elected to political office in 1986. Over time, we have all seen with clarity that our nation is moving forward on issues of equal opportunity and fairness with a growing number of Americans supporting marriage equality. People?s views are changing because they believe that gay family members, friends, and neighbors deserve to be treated like everyone else in the United States.
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court will listen to arguments in cases that will decide whether our country becomes more equal, not less. The Court will decide whether gay American citizens can continue to be discriminated against simply because of who they love. On Wednesday, I look forward to being a witness to history as I am excited to have a chance to attend the U.S. Supreme Court proceedings. With these two historic cases, America?s highest court will have an opportunity to reflect the progress we have all witnessed across our country. They will have an opportunity to reaffirm our founding belief that all Americans are created equal under the law.

-- Amanda Terkel

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Listen to the full audio of Tuesday's oral arguments here.

Read the full transcript of Tuesday's oral arguments here:

12-144 by Joe Palazzolo

President Barack Obama was briefed on Tuesday's Supreme Court oral arguments, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters.

Carney didn't offer any reaction from the president to the day's proceedings, but confirmed that three administration officials attended the Prop 8 arguments, including senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler.

He also declined to get into predictions, noting that "recent history" has shown that oral arguments don't necessarily predict Supreme Court outcomes.

--Sabrina Siddiqui

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From the top: Kris Perry, Sandy Stier, Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo

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Andrew Sullivan, the longtime, openly gay, writer, editor and blogger, says that his ideal outcome for the Prop 8 case is not a ruling that the right to same sex marriage is constitutional, but a ruling that directs California's ban to be thrown out, and for each state to then consider the issue on its own schedule. From his post on Tuesday:

If I had my druthers, the perfect outcome would be dismissing the challenge to the ruling striking down Prop 8 on ?standing? grounds, thereby allowing civil marriages to continue in California, striking down that part of DOMA which forbids the federal government from recognizing a state?s valid legal marriage licenses, on federalism grounds, and on heightened scrutiny grounds, striking down the ?separate-but-equal? segregation of civil unions which are substantively identical to civil marriage.
The end result would be 17 states with marriage equality recognized by the feds, and the debate could then continue democratically as it should state by state.

Sullivan has been a leading voice in advocating same-sex marriage. So this may seem surprising. But he's also a conservative and his federalism approach to the gay marriage debate seems drawn from there.

-- Sam Stein

Constitutional Accountability Center Vice President Judith E. Schaeffer issued this statement following arguments at the Supreme Court on Tuesday:

?When pressed by the justices, the lawyer defending Proposition 8 could not come up with any legitimate reason for excluding gay and lesbian couples from the freedom to marry. The Justices, while uncomfortable with Proposition 8, seemed hesitant to rule on the merits, but as Justice Kennedy noted, there was concern about branding the families of nearly 40,000 children in California as second-class.

"One important question Justice Scalia asked former Bush Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who defended marriage equality, was when it became unconstitutional to deny gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. The answer is 1868, when the American people added the Fourteenth Amendment's universal guarantee of equality to the Constitution.?

-- Ryan J. Reilly

Ted Olson, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case before the Supreme Court, gave two thumbs up when asked by The Huffington Post how he felt about the day's oral arguments.

"We'll see," Olson added with a smile, as he slipped into a car and left the scene outside the court.

-- Jennifer Bendery

The possibility is quite real that the Supreme Court will rule that the parties who appealed the Prop 8 case to the Supreme Court don't have standing to make their appeal.

If that ruling is made it would, in effect, mean that the law remains invalidated, as the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded, and that gay marriage in California is legal. It would also mean that the Supreme Court punted on the question of whether there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage and that other states could continue to not recognize marriage equality.

California is a massive state. And legalizing same-sex marriage there would mean that roughly a quarter of the country would, at this juncture, be able to marry their gay or lesbian partners. But would it be a victory for the legal team that has argued, for years, that there is a constitutional right?

Apparently so. Ted Olson, the Bush solicitor general said as much during his press conference outside the court after oral arguments on Tuesday.

-- Sam Stein

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The two top lawyers arguing for the constitutionality of marriage addressed reporters shortly after arguing their case before the Supreme Court. And they readily admitted that they were completely in the dark about how the justices would rule on their arguments.

"Based upon the questions that the justices asked, I have no idea [how they will rule]," said Ted Olson, the former Bush administration solicitor general. "The court has several ways to decide this case."

Olson did note one positive development that came with the oral arguments. No one was actually questioning whether gay marriage should be prohibited, just whether or not it should be the purview of the state government or the federal government. His colleague, David Boies, echoed that point.

"There was no attempt to defend the ban on gay and lesbian marriage," Boies said. "There was no indication of any harm. All that was said in there is that this important constitutional right ought to be decided at the state level and not the federal government. But it is a federal constitution we have."

-- Sam Stein

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CNN's Legal Analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, who made some sweeping conclusions about the health care legislation following the Supreme Court's oral argument last year, was a bit more hesitant in his feedback today.

"I am now not in the business of making predictions but I think it is even harder to predict the result of this case after hearing this argument," Toobin said. The conservative justices, he added, seemed very skeptical about imposing same-sex marriage from the bench. But he also noted that the justices "seemed almost to be groping for an answer."

NBC's Pete Williams, however, went more out on a ledge in his analysis. "It's quite obvious SCOTUS isn't ready to issue a sweeping ruling on gay rights," he said.

-- Sam Stein

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