The Supreme Court was asked to consider petitions for certiorari in seven separate cases challenging state laws barring legal recognition of same-sex marriage. On Monday morning, SCOTUSBlog reported, the Supreme Court denied all seven petitions. 
 
 Most commentators have assumed the Supreme Court would take one or more of these cases and (perhaps) conclusively determine whether the federal Constitution bars states from refusing to recognize same-sex marriages under state law. Yet all seven cases below had come out the same way. In all seven, lower courts struck down the challenged state laws, so there was no circuit split. 
 
 Given the lack of a split, I do not think it is at all surprising that the court denied these petitions. (Indeed, coincidentally, I was planning on writing a post raising doubts about when and whether the court would take on a same-sex marriage case.) There are several more cases pending in lower courts, including some in which there are reasons to suspect the states will prevail. If so, the court will have a split to resolve, making a grant a sure thing. If not, and same-sex marriage advocates run the table, the court can avoid resolving the issue. 
 
 Of course, on this issue, the real question is what Justice Anthony Kennedy thinks. Is he ready and willing to hold that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage? Or is he still conflicted given his federalist sympathies? This may ultimately determine when or whether the court takes a case challenging a state prohibition on same-sex marriage and how such a case is resolved. 
 
 UPDATE: Roberts Barnes reports for the Post here. How Appealing rounds up more news coverage. 
 
 SECOND UPDATE: It’s worth remembering that Justice Ginsburg remarked last month that there was “no urgency” to taking a same-sex marriage case. At the time she noted that some circuits, such as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, had yet to rule. As Dale Carpenter reported here, there is some reason to think the Sixth Circuit might well uphold the challenged state laws barring recognition of same-sex marriages, even if on particularly narrow grounds. That case was argued in August, and an opinion is likely in the next several weeks. 
 
 STILL MORE: Lyle Denniston explains here why most observers expected the Court to grant at least one of the petitions. ||||| Justice The Supreme Court Just Quietly Made Marriage Equality The Law Of The Land In Many States CREDIT: AP Photo/Richard Vogel 
 
 In a surprising anti-climax to one of the most important legal battles of the last several decades, the Supreme Court announced today that it would not hear several cases where federal appeals courts held that the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the same marriage rights as straight couples. The announcement listed these marriage equality cases as part of a lengthy order listing the cases where the Court had denied review. The justices offered no explanation for their decision. 
 
 As a practical matter, however, this decision not to hear these cases is an earthquake for gay rights. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, refused to issue a stay halting its order favoring marriage equality. Although the Supreme Court later stepped in with its own stay order, that order provides that the Supreme Court’s stay will “terminate automatically” if the Supreme Court denies review of the case. Now that the justices have done so, there should be no further legal barriers preventing marriages from beginning in those five states — although it is possible that there may be some delay before marriages may begin due to procedural steps that need to be taken by the judiciary. 
 
 The Court also denied review in cases arising out of the Seventh Circuit, which covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, and in the Tenth Circuit, which covers Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. It is likely that marriages will be able to begin quickly in those states as well — although it may be necessary for plaintiffs in some of those states to seek an order from a federal court requiring states that oppose marriage equality to comply with their obligations under the Constitution. 
 
 One thing that should be noted is that there are still marriage equality cases pending before conservative circuits that could rule against equality. Nevertheless, the fact that marriages are likely to begin very shortly in the states currently subject to court orders will make it very difficult for the Supreme Court to reverse course — and retroactively invalidate those marriages — in a subsequent opinion. ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — Both sides in the gay marriage debate agree on one thing: It's time for the Supreme Court to settle the matter. 
 
 FILE- In this June 26, 2013 file photo, gay rights advocate Vin Testa waves a rainbow flag in front of the Supreme Court in Washington. Both sides in the gay marriage debate agree on one thing: It’s time... (Associated Press) 
 
 Even a justice recently said she thinks so, too. 
 
 The emerging consensus makes it likely that the justices soon will agree to take up the question of whether the Constitution forbids states from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. A final ruling isn't likely before June 2015, but a decision to get involved could come as soon as the end of this month. 
 
 "I don't see a lot of reasons for them to wait," says Dale Carpenter, a gay rights expert at the University of Minnesota law school. "You have almost no one at this point opposed to certiorari," the legal term for high court review. 
 
 Officials in five states in which marriage bans were struck down by federal courts have rushed their appeals to the Supreme Court, in time for consideration by the justices when they meet in private on Sept. 29. Moving at breakneck speed, at least for the legal system, Indiana and Wisconsin filed appeals on Tuesday, just five days after the federal appeals court in Chicago struck down their state bans. The Chicago decision itself came just nine days after judges heard arguments, extremely fast for a process that usually is measured in months. Officials in Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia also have appealed to the Supreme Court. 
 
 Adding to the momentum, the winners in all those cases — who typically want to preserve their lower court victories and would normally oppose Supreme Court review — want the justices to weigh in. As expected, so do the losers. 
 
 In all, 36 states, encompassing both those that allow same-sex marriage and those that don't, want the justices to join the fray. Thirty businesses, including Alcoa, Amazon, eBay, General Electric, Intel, NIKE, Pfizer and Target, say the Supreme Court should extend same-sex marriage nationwide because the "current patchwork of state laws causes employees justifiable uncertainty about how their employers and governments will treat their familial relationships." 
 
 The range of cases seems to meet the standard set by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she predicted in an interview with The Associated Press in July that the court would not look for ways to avoid ruling on same-sex marriage, as it did for many years on interracial marriage bans. 
 
 "I think the court will not do what they did in the old days when they continually ducked the issue of miscegenation," Ginsburg said. "If a case is properly before the court, they will take it." 
 
 The speed at which gay marriage has moved through the courts stems from the Supreme Court's decision less than 15 months ago in U.S. v. Windsor to strike down a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that denied a range of tax, health and veterans benefits to legally married gay couples. 
 
 Since that decision, nearly two dozen judges have relied on Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion for the court to extend the Windsor decision to strike down state same-sex marriage bans in every region of the country. Only one federal trial judge, Martin Feldman in Louisiana, has upheld a state anti-gay marriage law. Elsewhere, two appellate judges have dissented from rulings in favor of same-sex marriage. 
 
 "We all know this is going to be decided one step up," attorney Monte Stewart said Monday in his court presentation in support of gay marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada. 
 
 "And we all know by whom," said appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt. 
 
 Reinhardt was referring to Kennedy, the deciding vote in the Windsor case and the author of all three major gay rights decisions at the Supreme Court stretching back to 1996. 
 
 "Justice Kennedy has built himself quite a legacy on gay rights issues," said the University of Minnesota's Carpenter, doubting that Kennedy would repudiate that legacy by casting a likely decisive vote against the right to marry. 
 
 The Windsor decision expressly left open the question of whether states could limit marriage to a man and a woman, yet "courts are all looking to the Supreme Court's Windsor precedent as the rule of decision for challenges to state marriage laws," Colorado and 16 other states that do not allow same-sex marriage told the court in support of the state appeals. 
 
 Gay and lesbian couples can now get married in 19 states and the District of Columbia. Judges in an additional 14 states have struck down prohibitions but put the rulings on hold pending appeals. The federal appeals court in Cincinnati could issue a decision at any time affecting Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. Appellate judges in San Francisco heard arguments Monday over bans in Idaho and Nevada. 
 
 The situation is strikingly different from the last time a state's same-sex marriage ban came to the Supreme Court — and that was only two years ago. Same-sex marriage then was legal in just six states. 
 
 "Talk about a journey. It's a movement that took a long time to get going, but it has really snowballed in the last two years," said James Esseks of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents gay couples seeking to marry in Indiana, Virginia and Wisconsin. 
 
 Then, supporters and opponents of gay marriage squared off over whether the justices should even hear the case. Opponents urged Supreme Court review, while supporters pleaded with the justices to stay out of it. After all, they had won what they wanted in the lower courts, the invalidation of California's Proposition 8. 
 
 The court eventually agreed to hear the California case as well as the federal Defense of Marriage Act case. The justices issued a technical ruling in the California case that eliminated Prop 8 but left for another day whether same-sex couples elsewhere have a constitutional right to marry. 
 
 The prevailing view is that day will soon arrive. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/shermancourt ||||| (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for legal same-sex marriages in five more states. 
 
 The court refused to hear cases from the states -- Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin -- seeking to keep their same-sex marriage bans in place. 
 
 Couples in some of those states began applying for marriage licenses just hours after the Supreme Court's decision. 
 
 CNN affiliate WVEC in Norfolk, Virginia, captured a same-sex couple who rushed to fill out their marriage license documents. Officials in Virginia began issuing same-sex marriage licenses at 1 p.m. Monday. 
 
 Tony London and Tim Bostic, two plaintiffs in Norfolk, said they were ready to receive their marriage license Monday afternoon. 
 
 "It was a pleasure suing you," London joked when a clerk handed him the license, a WVEC reporter tweeted, capturing the two locked in a kiss. 
 
 In Richmond, Lindsey Oliver and Nicole Pries left work and drove to the John Marshall Courthouse, where they were the first same-sex couple to be married. 
 
 "It's a great thing," Oliver told CNN affiliate WTVR. "There's lot of things that need to be done in Virginia to still make gays equal. This is one step and we're glad to be a part of it." 
 
 Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said all of the state's 54 county clerks must start issuing same-sex marriage licenses. 
 
 A similar order could be issued by day's end for Indiana and Wisconsin. 
 
 "Supreme Court" trended on Twitter with dozens of people weighing in -- and trying to figure out exactly what the high court's move meant. 
 
 Experts say its refusal to hear the cases from those five states also means that six more states -- Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, West Virginia, and Wyoming -- could soon have to lift their bans on same-sex marriage, because they are covered by the same circuit appeals courts that initially struck down the prohibitions. 
 
 Once that happens, the number of states permitting same-sex marriage would jump from 19 to 30. 
 
 At issue is whether gay and lesbian couples in all 50 states have the same equal protection or due process right to marry that opposite-sex couples have. 
 
 The Family Research Council, a conservative public policy and lobbying organization, said voters were having their rights infringed. 
 
 "Unfortunately, by failing to take up these marriage cases, the high court will allow rogue lower court judges who have ignored history and true legal precedent to silence the elected representatives of the people and the voice of the people themselves by overturning state provisions on marriage," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said. 
 
 In Utah, just hours after word from the high court came down, Gov. Gary Herbert said at a press conference that he felt "surprised" and "disappointed" that there was no "finality" on the issue of same-sex marriage. The state would comply with Monday's order, he said, and same-sex marriages would move forward. 
 
 "Regardless of your personal beliefs," he urged, "... please treat each other with respect and with kindness as we transition through this new law." 
 
 The court's action does not mean there won't eventually be a final ruling on the constitutional questions -- many court observers fully expect a landmark decision in the next year or two -- but it does signal the justices are not ready to jump into the politically charged debate right now. 
 
 The high court's move surprised many observers. Advocates on both sides of the issue had wanted the court to offer a definitive, binding ruling on key constitutional questions. 
 
 "The question of whether same-sex marriage bans are constitutional is a historic issue, under the Constitution and for the Roberts Court," said Thomas Goldstein, publisher of SCOTUSblog.com and a respected Washington attorney. "It's hard to imagine a situation where judges are going to have more power to define the social and family relationships of the country." He's referring to Chief Justice John Roberts. 
 
 Both sides passionate 
 
 Same-sex marriage is already legal in the District of Columbia and 19 U.S states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. 
 
 A Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage would essentially end a patchwork of state laws -- some that allow it, some that prohibit it, and a few that allow protections short of marriage, such as civil unions and domestic partnerships. 
 
 Marriage equality supporters cheered the high court's Monday order. 
 
 "Today's decision by the Supreme Court leaves in force five favorable marriage rulings reached in three federal appellate courts, ensuring the freedom to marry for millions more Americans around the country," said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry. 
 
 "But we are one country, with one Constitution, and the court's delay in affirming the freedom to marry nationwide prolongs the patchwork of state-to-state discrimination and the harms and indignity that the denial of marriage still inflicts on too many couples in too many places." 
 
 The Supreme Court hurried to schedule the appeals from the five states for its closed-door conference, even before all the legal briefs had been filed. But the justices offered no explanation of why they are not ready to resolve the issue. 
 
 Some conservative activists say the high court should stay out of same-sex marriage issues. 
 
 "When the court on such an issue -- where there are very strong opinions on both sides, and a huge issue of social change in our country -- steps in and makes it into a constitutional issue, it makes the justices look significantly more political in the eyes of the American people," said Carrie Severino, chief counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network. 
 
 "It would cast doubt on the legitimacy of the court ... by imposing one type of solution for the entire nation, instead of leaving it in the hands of the states to decide how they want to address this issue." 
 
 Many supporters of "traditional" marriage privately say preserving an inflexible one-man/one-woman definition of wedlock nationwide would not be realistic moving forward, and that a divided bloc of states upholding the status quo may be the best possible scenario. But all that hinges on what the Supreme Court does. 
 
 Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, the first state attorney general to argue successfully at the district and appeals level for a marriage ban to be struck down, said "a new day has dawned, and the rights guaranteed by our Constitution are shining through." 
 
 Same-sex precedent 
 
 A federal appeals court in August took just nine days after intensive oral arguments to issue its sweeping conclusion that voter-approved same-sex marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin were unacceptably discriminatory. And state leaders then took just five days to formally ask the Supreme Court to intervene. 
 
 Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently hinted that a "Why wait?" attitude may predominate. 
 
 "I think the court will not do what they did in the old days when they continually ducked the issue of miscegenation," she told The Associated Press in July, referring to interracial marriage, a ban on which was not struck down by the high court until 1967. "If a case is properly before the court, they will take it." 
 
 It takes just four of the nine justices to put such petitions on the docket -- but five, of course, to ultimately prevail on the merits. 
 
 State and federal judges in the past year have ruled 39 times in favor of the expanded marriage right, while two have upheld existing laws. All this follows what the Supreme Court in 2013 said peripherally on the issue. 
 
 Fifteen months ago, the justices cleared the way for same-sex marriages in California to resume after it ruled private parties did not have "standing" to defend a voter-approved ballot measure barring gay and lesbian couples from state-sanctioned wedlock. 
 
 More importantly, the high court also rejected parts of the federal Defense of Marriage Act in its 5-4 "Windsor" decision, citing equal protection guarantees to conclude same-sex spouses legally married in a state may receive federal benefits, such as tax breaks. 
 
 That federal question now morphs into the higher-stakes state jurisdiction, where marriage laws have traditionally been controlled, and where the equal protection issues will ultimately be resolved. 
 
 By CNN's count, various individuals and gay rights groups have launched more than 80 pending marriage equality lawsuits in all 31 states with current bans. A Supreme Court review would put all that litigation on hold. 
 
 However, the nine justices had complete discretion to stand on the sidelines for now and wait for a majority of these state battles to play out, or for a federal appeals court to uphold a ban. 
 
 CNN's Steve Almasy contributed to this story. ||||| The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will decide a historic question about whether the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry no matter where they live or whether states are free to limit wedlock to its traditional definition as a union only between a man and a woman. 
 
 The court accepted cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, where restrictions about same-sex marriage were upheld by an appeals court in Cincinnati two months ago. The high court will hold 2 1/ 2 hours of oral arguments in April and decide the issue by the time the current term ends in June. 
 
 The justices ordered that the parties to the cases address two questions in their legal briefs: whether the Constitution requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and whether states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states where they are legal. 
 
 Advocates have called same-sex marriage the modern era’s most pressing civil rights issue, and the court’s action could mark the culmination of an unprecedented upheaval in public opinion and the nation’s jurisprudence. 
 
 The country’s first same-sex marriage, the result of a Massachusetts court decision, took place less than 11 years ago. Now, more than 70 percent of Americans live in states where same-sex couples are allowed to marry, according to estimates. 
 
 
 
 
 
 The questions raised in the cases that the court will consider this spring were left open in 2013 when the justices last confronted the issue of same-sex marriage. A slim majority said at the time that a key portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act — withholding recognition of same-sex marriages — was unconstitutional and in a separate case allowed same-sex marriages to resume in California. 
 
 Since then, courts across the nation — with the notable exception of the Cincinnati appeals court — have struck down a string of state prohibitions on same-sex marriage, many of them passed by voters in referendums. Many of those court decisions compared the prohibitions to the ones on interracial marriage that the Supreme Court struck down in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. 
 
 When the Supreme Court declined to review a clutch of those decisions in October, same-sex marriage proliferated across the country. 
 
 Couples may now marry in 36 states and the District. Three in four same-sex couples live in a state where they are allowed to wed, according to estimates by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. 
 
 Public attitudes toward such unions have undergone a remarkable change as well. Polls show that a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, which was not sanctioned anywhere in the country at the turn of this young century. 
 
 After the court’s announcement Friday afternoon, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that the Obama administration will file a friend-of-the-court brief asking the justices “to make marriage equality a reality for all Americans.” 
 
 Those on both sides of the issue agreed that the time had come for the Supreme Court to step in and settle the issue. 
 
 “It is time for the 50 million Americans who stood for marriage in 30 states to have their day in court,” said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage. He said his groups expects “an eventual victory for the democratic process, religious liberty and the cherished institution of marriage, which forms the very bedrock of our society.” 
 
 But others, including many conservatives, think the outcome is foreshadowed by the court’s action in 2013. 
 
 When the justices declined in October to review the string of victories same-sex marriage proponents had won, it meant the number of states required to allow gay marriages grew dramatically, offering the kind of cultural shift the court often likes to see before approving a fundamental change. 
 
 “We are thrilled the court will finally decide this issue,” said James Esseks, director of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project. “The country is ready for a national solution that treats lesbian and gay couples fairly. 
 
 The Michigan case involves the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The cases from Tennessee and Ohio concern whether states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states where such unions are legal. And Kentucky offers cases that touch on both licensing and recognition. 
 
 The coming cases are built on the court’s 2013 decisions. 
 
 In the DOMA case, U.S. v. Windsor, the decision written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the federal government could not refuse to recognize or provide benefits to people in same-sex marriages that were conducted in states where they were legal. 
 
 Dozens of lower-court judges nationwide have read Kennedy’s opinion — in which he was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — to mean that state bans violate constitutional rights as well. 
 
 Withholding federal recognition of same-sex married couples, Kennedy wrote in Windsor, ­places them “in an unstable position of being in second-tier marriages” and “demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects . . . and whose relationship the State has sought to dignify.” 
 
 Kennedy, who sides with conservatives on most issues, is the pivotal member of the court and has written all of its modern decisions protecting gay rights, including Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down sodomy laws that targeted gay men. 
 
 But in his Windsor decision, Kennedy also cited the principles of state autonomy, which states have made central in arguments defending laws and state constitutional amendments defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. 
 
 Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R), for instance, said, “It has always been Ohio’s position this is an issue for the people to decide.” 
 
 But Kennedy’s opinion in Windsor did not rest just on federalism. He said the states that allowed same-sex marriages “conferred upon them a dignity and status of immense import.” 
 
 He said the history of DOMA was written to convey moral disapproval of homosexuality and “a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the states.” 
 
 Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented in that case. 
 
 Roberts wrote separately in Windsor to point out that the decision did not pass judgment on state bans. 
 
 “We may in the future have to resolve challenges to state marriage definitions affecting same-sex couples,” he wrote. “That issue, however, is not before us.” 
 
 But most lower-court judges thought the logic of the majority argument indicated that the bans were unconstitutional. And many of them cited Scalia’s caustic dissent in Windsor. 
 
 “It takes real cheek for today’s majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here,” Scalia wrote. 
 
 Instead, “the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition,” Scalia wrote, and such suits are a “second . . . shoe to be dropped later.” 
 
 But almost everyone was surprised by how quickly that shoe dropped. Within six months, the first federal judge had struck down a ban, in Utah. Quickly, judges nationwide, and panels of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 7th, 9th and 10th circuits, struck down state bans. 
 
 In October, the justices declined to review those decisions without giving any reason. But Ginsburg, who has performed several same-sex marriages since the Windsor decision, has said in interviews that there is no need for the high court to intervene when lower courts are in agreement. 
 
 That changed in November, when a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati upheld the bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. 
 
 Circuit Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, writing for himself and Judge Deborah L. Cook, rejected the Windsor analysis that led other appeals courts to strike down the bans on same-sex marriage. 
 
 In his decision, Sutton repeatedly returned to the principle of democratic action, saying advocates of same-sex marriage would be better off by persuading their fellow citizens than by asking federal judges to force the issue. 
 
 “When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers,” Sutton wrote. “Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.” 
 
 Senior Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey said in a sharply worded dissent, said federal judges are required to protect the constitutional rights of the minority. 
 
 “If we in the judiciary do not have the authority, and indeed the responsibility, to right fundamental wrongs left excused by a majority of the electorate, our whole intricate, constitutional system of checks and balances, as well as the oaths to which we swore, prove to be nothing but shams,” she wrote. 
 
 The cases accepted by the court are Obergefell v. Hodges (Ohio), Tanco v. Haslam (Tennessee), DeBoer v. Snyder (Michigan) and Bourke v. Beshear (Kentucky). ||||| It’s come to this: Even those who most strongly oppose gay marriage think the Supreme Court is likely to support a constitutional right to same-sex unions — and are looking beyond Tuesday’s legal arguments to demand that Congress intervene. 
 
 Wielding placards supporting “traditional marriage” and reciting prayers for divine intervention, pastors and other social conservatives who gathered on the court’s steps Monday sounded resigned to a ruling they believe would be deeply damaging to the nation. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 “We recognize that we are at a crossroads like never before in this nation’s history,” the American Decency Association’s Bill Johnson said, urging gay-marriage opponents to hope for the best but brace for the worst. “I would just say to each one of us that there is still that possibility that, despite the darkness of the day, that God answers prayers.” 
 
 “We now perhaps are days away from this very court telling us that holy matrimony between one man and one woman, ordained by God in the Garden of Eden … is merely a relic of a bygone era,” added Kay Daly of the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary. “I’m hopeful but, at the same time, I have a great deal of trepidation.” 
 
 On Tuesday, the court will hear arguments on same-sex marriage cases that could lead to a ruling forcing every state to certify gay unions. The justices’ endorsement of such a sweeping constitutional right was almost unthinkable even a decade ago, but jurisprudence has changed so quickly — alongside public opinion — that even two of the court’s most die-hard conservatives, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, seemed to concede earlier this year that the court was moving toward granting a right to marry. 
 
 Thus, those who inveighed against the evils of same-sex marriage outside the court building on Monday were already looking past the justices to Congress, urging lawmakers to support legislation that would strip federal courts of jurisdiction over marriage-related litigation and forbid officials from spending federal funds to enforce whatever the Supreme Court holds in a ruling expected by late June. 
 
 Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) introduced a bill last week that would make both such moves. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has proposed a similar measure, along with a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the federal government from interfering with state gay-marriage bans. 
 
 The anti-gay-rights activists’ concern that they may need such measures is not without foundation. While the comments of legal pundits are easy to dismiss as mere speculation, the court’s most conservative justices also seem to be among those who see the writing on the wall. 
 
 In February, when the Supreme Court refused to block an appeals court ruling requiring Alabama to recognize same-sex marriage, Thomas and Scalia joined to warn that the justices’ refusal to step in “may well be seen as a signal of the Court’s intended resolution” of the marriage cases it will hear Tuesday. 
 
 The pair of conservative justices never made exactly clear if they agreed or disagreed with the likely public assessment of where the court would come out, but their overall tone suggested that a ruling in favor of same-sex marriage might be inevitable. 
 
 Many legal observers predicted it would be at least several years before the issue of same-sex marriage returned to the high court after a pair of decisions the justices issued in 2013. One landmark, 5-4 ruling in the case of Windsor v. U.S. struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. But the justices passed up on technical grounds a case out of California where they could have resolved the issue definitively. 
 
 The move punted the issue back to the lower federal courts, which acted with surprising speed and near-unanimity to strike down gay-marriage bans across the country. 
 
 “I don’t know if it’s a rocket docket,” said Daly. “This is dangerous in a lot of ways … It’s gratifying in one sense. It’s terrifying in another.” 
 
 However, some conservatives believe the court actually acted too slowly, particularly when it decided last October not to take up appeals from five states that asked the justices to confront the issue head-on. That gave other courts more time to issue more rulings in favor of same-sex marriage, eventually spreading the practice to 37 states. The flurry of rulings, and the justices’ refusal to stay them, created a kind of on-the-ground momentum that could be hard for the justices to reverse. 
 
 “The combination of this broadly worded but deeply confusing opinion in Windsor, coupled with their refusal to take responsibility for what lower courts have done with it, is significant,” said University of Richmond Law professor Kevin Walsh. “Once it became clear what lower courts were doing with the decision in Windsor, [the justices] should have addressed whether the Constitution requires recognizing same-sex marriage.” 
 
 A crowd gathering in advance of Tuesday's Supreme Court hearing on gay marriage. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO 
 
 In January, the high court finally agreed to wade into the issue again, granting review to cases from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee after the federal appeals court with jurisdiction over those states — the Sixth Circuit — bucked the trend and ruled against same-sex marriage rights. 
 
 There’s a broad expectation that the Supreme Court is likely to rule at least 5-4 in favor of a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage, with Republican-appointed Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the court’s Democratic appointees expected to back such a right. 
 
 A total of five lawyers are expected to square off during the scheduled 2½ hours of argument Tuesday. 
 
 Two private attorneys — Mary Bonauto of Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, a former lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Solicitor General — will argue in favor of same-sex marriage rights, as will Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. 
 
 Arguing for the four state bans on gay marriage will be former Michigan Solicitor General John Bursch and Joseph Whalen, who works in the office of Tennessee’s solicitor general. 
 
 Advocates for same-sex marriage rights are expected to argue that there’s no rational basis for prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying and that, even if there were, measures that discriminate against gays and lesbians should be subjected to heightened scrutiny that such bans can’t possibly meet. 
 
 The lawyers for the states counter that there are a variety of reasons to allow states to enforce such bans, including a respect for voters who put the measures in place. Other reasons revolve around a kind of autonomy for states, as well as longtime justifications for same-sex marriage bans, including promoting male-female marriages, and encouraging procreation and child rearing. 
 
 While it hasn’t received much discussion, there is a potential twist in how the court could rule on same-sex marriage. 
 
 When the justices agreed to hear the four cases in January, the court not only asked lawyers to address the issue of whether the Constitution requires states to allow gay couples to marry but also added a question about whether states should be required to recognize marriages approved in other states. 
 
 That raises the possibility that a majority of judges could stop short of requiring states to allow same-sex couples to marry, but insist that states accept as married any couple legally married in another state. That would allow states to maintain their same-sex marriage bans, but cure some of the problems gay and lesbian married couples face relating to hospital visitation, inheritance, divorce and child-raising. 
 
 Gay rights advocates sounded confident Tuesday that the massive shift in public opinion in favor of same-sex marriage would propel the justices toward the more sweeping ruling. 
 
 “Simply put, this isn’t a question any longer of a country evolving. This country has evolved,” Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said, echoing President Barack Obama’s language as his position on the issue morphed from opposing gay marriage to embracing it. 
 
 “Now, it’s just a question of when our laws will finally catch up,” Griffin added. 
 
 The plaintiff whose name leads off the cases the Supreme Court will hear Tuesday, Jim Obergefell of Ohio, said he’s surprised at how quickly the country has come to accept same-sex marriage in the wake of the last pair of rulings from the justices in 2013. 
 
 “The last two years it’s been amazing how much has changed and how quickly it’s changed,” said Obergefell, who married his terminally ill, long-term partner John Arthur in an unusual ceremony aboard a medical aircraft at the Baltimore airport in 2013. Arthur died a few months later. Obergefell is fighting for the right to be listed as Arthur’s husband on his death certificate. 
 
 “What I hope will happen in June is long overdue, but I have to be happy that it is on the verge of happening,” Obergefell said.
– The Supreme Court made a surprise decision this morning by refusing to hear appeals from five states trying to ban same-sex marriage, kick-starting a flurry of "What does this mean?" and "What happens next?" speculation. Some reaction: Under the headline "The Supreme Court Just Quietly Made Marriage Equality The Law Of The Land In Many States," Ian Millhiser writes at ThinkProgress that the "anti-climax" of a decision is, nevertheless, "an earthquake for gay rights" practically speaking. Though Millhiser notes there may be a waiting period and logistical obstacles for same-sex couples, he writes that looming marriages "will make it very difficult for the Supreme Court to reverse course—and retroactively invalidate those marriages—in a subsequent opinion." Over at Slate, Mark Joseph Stern calls the court's move "unexpected and somewhat bizarre," citing his own Slate piece last week in which he noted Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's recent comments that there was "no need for [the Supreme Court] to rush" until circuit courts found same-sex marriage bans to be constitutional. He brings up one other interesting point: "If no circuit court ever rules against gay marriage, the gay marriage question will be effectively settled, and the Supreme Court will never have to wade in again." Agreeing that "almost no one expected that to happen," Lyle Denniston writes at SCOTUSblog that the decision was so surprising because: the Supreme Court had actually been asked to review all seven state cases ("a rare thing … that almost never fails to assure review"); that the court appeared to have given recent indications it was ready "to confront the basic issue"; and that today's decision doesn't exactly sync up with last year's ruling in United States v. Windsor, which struck a major blow to the Defense of Marriage Act, as per the AP. Jonathan H. Adler at the Washington Post, however, wasn't terribly surprised, mainly because all petitions before the Supreme Court had already been nixed by lower circuit courts. Instead, Adler wants to know—especially since the decision came with zero comment from the judges—"is what Justice Anthony Kennedy thinks. … Is he ready and willing to hold that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage? Or is he still conflicted given his federalist sympathies?"