The Supreme Court will hear arguments this week in two cases involving gay marriage: Hollingsworth v. Perry, which addresses the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, and United States v. Windsor, which examines several dimensions of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.
People who’ve been camped out outside the court are sick of reporters’ questions, Ben Terris reports. “At one point I had 16 people around me all asking me questions at the same time,” blogger Jason Wanacott tells Terris.
For anyone who can’t make it to the court, an explainer of the issues before the court is the next best thing. And gosh, are there a lot of them. Here are a just a few:
• On SCOTUSblog, Bloomberg Supreme Court reporter Greg Stohr has an excellent Q&A about the cases. SCOTUSblog also offers deeper dives on Perry and Windsor as part of its “In Plain English” series. (SCOTUSblog can handle more readers now than it could during oral arguments regarding Obamacare last March. “But on the decision days at the end of the term, we definitely will be ramping up again,” Publisher Tom Goldstein tells Poynter in an email. Read about how SCOTUSblog prepared for last year’s health-care ruling.)
• BuzzFeed has a snappy explainer by Chris Geidner, including photos of plaintiffs and a helpful primer on the issues.
• Mother Jones’ Dana Liebelson has had a post going since November. It is a cornucopia of information, including a map of state-by-state marriage laws and a table explaining what various outcomes would mean to different states.
• New York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak has a very helpful Q&A.
• The Associated Press’ explainer includes a cameo from Rob Reiner.
