Anthony Kennedy

Experts said that based on Wednesday's arguments, the U.S. Supreme Court appears willing to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act. Gay rights lawyer Jon W. Davidson said Wednesday that the U.S. Supreme Court was likely to permit married same-sex...

WASHINGTON -- For a quarter-century, Antonin Scalia has been the reigning bully of the Supreme Court, but finally a couple of justices are willing to face him down. As it happens, the two manning up to take on Nino the Terrible are women: the court's...

Excerpts from the arguments before the Supreme Court on Tuesday about California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage, from a transcript released by the Supreme Court: ___ On whether the case should be before them (Chief Justice John Roberts and...

Court decisions sometimes spark dramatic political backlashes. Brown vs. Board of Education, which struck down school segregation laws in 1954, temporarily retarded progressive racial reform in the South and advanced the political careers of racial...

Rep. Nancy Pelosi got Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom-- the former San Francisco mayor whose actions launched the litigation -- a seat in the courtroom Tuesday. “I don’t want to overstate it, but literally when I walked in, I had a feeling I had never...

The mood was electric that crisp, clear February day as couples lined up at San Francisco City Hall to be among the first to get licenses for same-sex marriages in California. Nine tortuous years followed: The state high court halted and invalidated...

The U.S. Su­preme Court heard or­al ar­gu­ments Tuesday on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of Cali­for­nia’s Pro­pos­i­tion 8, which banned same-sex mar­riage. The court has provided rare same-day audio and written transcript of the proceedings. The...

In Echo Park on Tuesday morning, Sean Stentz was among those expressing support for gay marriage as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on California’s Proposition 8. Marriage is a fundamental individual right that should be available to...

WASHINGTON -- Don't take anything for granted. The conservative activists on the Supreme Court may not be able to halt the inexorable shift toward acceptance of gay marriage, but we probably should expect them to try. The two big cases being argued this...

Gotta hand it to Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. Tuesday morning she interrupted Charles J. Cooper, the attorney representing the anti-gay marriage side in the court’s hearing on California’s Proposition 8. She cut through the legal...

The Supreme Court asked skeptical questions Tuesday of former Reagan administration lawyer Charles J. Cooper about his assertion that California’s ban on gay marriage should be upheld. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. questioned Cooper as to...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Backers of gay marriage expressed satisfaction with the arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, saying they believed the justices supported their position. Jon Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal, a gay rights...