“On Same-Sex Marriage, the Supreme Court Will Have to Tackle the Question of Rights”

Garrett Epps:

Since the Supreme Court’s order Friday agreeing to hear four same-sex marriage cases, some professors and reporters have raised a troubling possibility: Could the Court have “stacked the deck” against full marriage equality by the way it phrased the “questions presented” by the cases? These are framed in terms of the states’ powers rather than of individual rights. These court watchers have suggested that they may point to a “compromise” that would mean less than full marriage equality—that is, a holding that states must recognize marriages performed by other states but may continue to refuse to marry same-sex coulples themselves….“Recognition” and “celebration” go together like a horse and carriage. I don’t see a way to split them that would allow the Court—or its key justice—to escape this term’s rendezvous with destiny.

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