SCOTUS schedules same-sex marriage arguments

 

From LegalTimes: The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in two pending same-sex marriage cases on March 26 and March 27.

The justices slotted arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry, a challenge involving California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage, for March 26, and in U.S. v. Windsor, concerning the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), on March 27.

In the Perry case, supporters of Prop. 8 challenge a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. They ask the justices whether the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause prohibits a state from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

In Windsor, the justices will decide whether Section 3 of DOMA, establishing that marriage, for all federal purposes, is the union between a man and woman, violates the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee.