Supreme Court to take on marriage equality.

Courtesy of TPM:  

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a case that could bring about the end of same-sex marriage bans across the country. 

The justices announced in an order that they will consider if state bans on gay marriage violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Oral arguments are likely to be heard in April — the justices allotted two and a half hours to the issue. And a decision is expected by the end of June. 

The long-awaited move was triggered by a ruling at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which became the first appeals court since the 2013 decision against the Defense of Marriage Act to uphold gay marriage bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. The Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit court had split with appellate courts at the 10th Circuit, 7th Circuit, 4th Circuit and 9th Circuit, all of which struck down gay marriage bans in the regions they cover. 

Earlier this year the Supreme Court declined to take the cases, which paved the way for legal gay marriage in 30 states and the District of Columbia.

Here are the two issues that the court is addressing:

1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex? 

2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state? 

The decision on this will of course have far reaching effects on the fourteen states that still ban marriage equality.

It seems that the  conventional wisdom suggests that the court will likely land on the side of marriage equality, especially considering their ruling in the Windsor case, which means that this could be the final hurdle for the LGBT community. And that after the decision is handed down the few remaining holdouts will have little recourse but to join the 21st Century.