Pro-gay marriage protesters turned out at the Supreme Court again on Wednesday, for the second day of hearings on California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act — but traditional marriage supporters were seemingly missing from the crowd.
Unlike Tuesday’s protest, where both sides turned out en masse and engaged in heated debate, Wednesday’s protest was smaller and comprised mostly of same-sex marriage supporters. If traditional marriage supporters were present, then they weren’t making their voices heard — at all.
Even those who stood in line on Monday to get tickets to the two days of hearings were mostly gay marriage supporters. Only one person of the roughly 40 people identified herself as siding with the tradition marriage position.
“I’m interested in hearing the arguments,” said Nicole Hudgens, a D.C. transplant from Shreveport, La., who was really hoping to get into the oral arguments for DOMA. “I’m for traditional marriage.”
Hudgens based her opinion on her Christian values and said that traditional marriage promotes healthy family environments.
“Any time you redefine what the definition of marriage is, it’s going to have an impact on those kids and societies built on families,” she said. “The best families are ones where the kids get to have a mom and a dad, and that provides a more stable environment for them to live … anything promoting marriage between a man and a woman, making sure that those kids have both parents in their lives, that’s the policy that I’m for.”
The oral arguments on the Defense of Marriage Act lasted for almost two hours on Wednesday. The plaintiffs are asking the high court to rule Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional in the 1996 case, U.S. v. Windsor, suggesting it breaches the Fifth Amendment by denying federal marriage recognition to gay couples who legally married in their home states.
The SCOTUS heard arguments about California’s Proposition 8 case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, on Tuesday, and the justices will decide whether or not it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The cases will likely not be decided until June, but until then, expect the debate over gay marriage to continue, even after the last protester leaves the Supreme Court this week. Traditional marriage advocates are likely just as passionate as same-sex marriage supporters, but they need to make their voices heard just as loudly in order to affect change in the debate over DOMA and Prop 8.
