As Rulings Are Announced, Cheers and Tears Among Waiting Crowd By Erica Berenstein and Marcus Mabry Defense of Marriage Act Overturned: The Times's Marcus Mabry on what married same-sex couples can expect after the Supreme Court's decision Wednesday that the law is unconstitutional. WASHINGTON - For more than two weeks, gay rights advocates stood at the steps of the United States Supreme Court waiting to hear decisions from the justices about two cases affecting millions of gay men and lesbians across the nation. With each day that passed without a ruling, they left disappointed. But on Wednesday, the last day the court convened for this term, crowds erupted in cheers just after 10 a.m. as the court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act. Same sex couples who had been waiting for the decision hugged and kissed one another, crying. "I can't believe it," Joshua Schneider, an Israeli-American who married his partner last year in New York, said on hearing that the marriage act had been ruled unconstitutional. I have to call my husband. Gay rights advocates predominated in the crowd, but they were not alone. A few proponents of the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, held signs with images and text that supported opposite-sex marriage. The Rev. Robert Schenck, chairman of the Evangelical Church Alliance, called the court's ruling on the marriage act "a bittersweet outcome" in that it took away from the government the capacity to determine the nature of marriage. "We want to preserve marriage to its true nature," he said, which he defined as men and women uniting to form families. Dozens of people made their way to the court building beginning around 7:30 Tuesday night to sit in line in order to be admitted inside on Wednesday morning to hear the decisions. By 7 a.m., the line stretched down the front steps and wrapped around the corner. People stood up to start walking into the building about 7:15 a.m., and court officials started handing out tickets to enter. Coffee cups and candy wrappers lined the sidewalk, and a few sleepy college-aged boys brushed their teeth in the street. "You only can sleep on the cement and witness history once," said Joanne Joseph, a law student at Cornell who is studying religious freedom. Larry Cirignano, a Washington resident from New Jersey, held a sign supporting marriage between a man and a woman. "I think this says it all," Mr. Cirignano said. Man plus woman equals marriage. I think we will continue this discussion across the country for a long time. Thirty-eight states still haven't made it legal. Supporters of the two cases drowned out Mr. Cirignano's words as they chanted: "What do we want? Equality! When do we want it? Now! The crowd also sang verses of "God Bless America." The scene was relatively tame compared with the throngs outside the hearings that took place in March, but bigger crowds were expected. News media crews clogged the sidewalk in front of the building. Maureen Mentrek and Karna Adam, both sophomores at Dartmouth, said they came to the court at 9:30 Tuesday night to get in line. They said they had slept for about an hour, with pillows and sleeping bags on the sidewalk. "It's a huge landmark case and to actually be able to see it and to see these people in line so passionate about it is really great," Mr. Adam said. It is a changing time for us and these cases are like the civil rights cases used to be for past generations. Jared Milrad, a lawyer who lives in Washington, arrived at the court about 11 p.m. Tuesday night. He said he had come to hear the decisions because DOMA personally affected him. He and his boyfriend were engaged last month in New York and hope to be married within a year. "I came for those who couldn't be here whether living or dead, including those heroes of mine in the L.G.B.T. community," Mr. Milrad said. An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a lawyer who had gone to the Supreme Court to hear the announcement of rulings in cases involving same-sex marriage. He is Jared Milrad, not Millrad.