Supreme Court

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama may have made a slow start on gay rights issues, but by the end of his first term his record was such that a news magazine dubbed him the nation's "first gay president." Now activists want more.

Fresh from historic Supreme Court arguments over same-sex unions, advocates want Obama to use his executive powers to fight discrimination at businesses, schools, and military bases and stop waiting for action from a reluctant Congress.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule in June on big issues: the constitutional right to gay marriage and the right of gay married couples to federal benefits. Both are backed by Obama. Read more »

Eager to be eyewitnesses to history, people camped for days in the dismal cold, shivering in the slanting shadow of the Capitol dome, to claim tickets for the Supreme Court’s historic oral arguments on same-sex marriage. Some hoped that the Justices would extend marriage rights; others prayed that they would not. When at last the doors of the white marble temple swung open on March 26 for the first of two sessions devoted to the subject, the lucky ones found seats in time to hear Justice Anthony Kennedy — author of two important earlier decisions in favor of gay rights and likely a key vote this time as well — turn the tables on the attorney defending the traditionalist view. Read more »

Hearing a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows federal benefits to go only to heterosexual married couples, the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of the statute and indicated that it might strike down a section of the 1996 law.

At issue in Wednesday’s oral argument was the Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, passed by overwhelming margins in both houses of Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton.

A section of the law, in effect, bars federal agencies from recognizing same-sex marriages, even in the states where they are legal.

After the oral arguments, NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams reported that there seemed to be the five votes on the court that would be needed to invalidate the law. Read more »

When the Supreme Court listens to arguments about same sex marriage Tuesday in what is expected to be an historic case, sitting in the audience as a guest of Chief Justice John Roberts will be his lesbian cousin.

In an open letter distributed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights,  Jean Podrasky writes, “Tomorrow, my cousin, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, will begin considering the fate of two of the most important cases impacting the rights of the LGBT community ever to go before the Court—the challenges to California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). ”

“I want nothing more than to marry my wonderful girlfriend,” states Podrasky, who lives in the San Francisco area. Read more »