same-sex marriage should be recognized. 73%. here s the question. the court is choosing to rule now. are the justices looking at the trends and saying we need to use our power, our installation to public opinion to put a stop to it or are they looking at the trends and seeing a chance to join his ri. to become the court that says gay marriage is protected under the constitution. joining us is the chief justice professor at constitutional law at nyu. thank you for being here. that s a great title. my question is simple. why now? the court is a passive institution. it can t reach out and grab cases. but there s an additional layer. why didn t the court say we re not going to review this case? one of the cases that we didn t look at in your excellent introduction is a case right
different for reasons we can go into. but many of us thought the prop 8 case it s going to go back. it s going to be legal in california but nowhere else and the court is going to wait another ten years. then wash out the outliers like intraracial marriage did. so what are the implications the differing implications of how they could rule? what different parts of the gay marriage question could they resolve? the doma case is a much more easy case. it s a much more challenge. all it does is to return congress to its original position of following whatever states definition of marriage are. in some ways it was crafted, it s a movement. they tend to be pro-state s rights and the liberals are pro gay, so essentially toward the middle, these are justice kennedy s favorite things. that s clearly a fifth vote for this case. we assume.
ruled in cases involving race and discrimination. the most famous in brown v. board of education which the court held it was unconstitutional. so why wait until 1967 to hear the case about interracial marriage. here are all of the states that had laws on the books. banning interracial marriage. by 1967 only 16 states still had the laws on the books. in the decades between 1947 and 1967 the years the supreme court was staying mum on the issue, most states decided on their own. the court was following on their heels, following the heels of public opinion. this is a big debate in the legal world. is the supreme court influenced by american public opinion? these are nine people who could completely ignore the will of the people.
had laws on the books in 1947 banning interracial marriage. by 1967 only 16 states still had those laws on the books. in the two decades between 1947 and 1967, the years the supreme court was staying mum on the issue, most states decided on their own it was unconstitutional to ban interracial marriage, or at least was. the court was following on their heels, following the heels of public opinion. this is a big debate in the legal world. is the supreme court influenced by american public opinion? these are nine people who could completely ignore the will of the people. they are appointed for life. no election. no culpability. they can totally ignore us if they choose. many legal experts say that s not how it works. supreme court justices are, in fact, swayed by what people in this country think about issues. today the supreme court announced it would hear two cases involving same-sex marriage next year. that s huge. they would hear the prop 8 case out of california. prop 8 is the califo
the court will some time this year, probably in june, decide whether that amendment is unconstitutional. but the court also said it would hear a challenge to the defense of marriage act, a 1996 law passed under president clinton that defined marriage between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal law. the question is why now? why did the supreme court choose this moment? nine states and washington, d.c. all recognize same-sex marriage now. that doesn t seem like very many but it s happening quickly. three of those states people voted to legal marriage in november. maryland, maine, washington. first time ever done so. there s a big public opinion trend here. since 04, the washington post abc news polls have been asking people should it be legal or illegal for gay and lesbian couples to get married? in 2004, 59% of people said they thought it should be against the law. in 2012 it was almost the opposite. 53% favor making it legal.