chris and sandy s twin boys were just entering high school. when this case is heard, they will be getting ready to graduate from high school. their moms deserve the same freedom to marry just as everyone else has in this country. and in this country we don t deny a certain portion of our citizens a fundamental right. we just don t. it s not american. isn t it true that when we had this in the court in the ninth in the appellate level, nobody came forward because nobody could come up with what you call a justification, some compelling reason. just chat on that point. you raised it. there s no compelling reason against giving the rights to people, the right to marriage. that s exactly right, chris. it s important to note in both of these cases, the united states government has refused to defend doma, the federal law that s now before this court, and when we filed the case right here in california as one has to do, we sued the governor at the time which was arnold schwarzenegger and o
consensual, and, quote, to declare the issue as one related to the right to engage in certain sexual conduct demeans the claim the individual put forward. so could it happen? could it happen next year? that the supreme court declare it is unconstitutional to deny people of the same sex the right to marry? one a question, what a story. joining me now is the president of the human rights campaign chad griffin and gay rights advocate elizabeth birch. i think i know what the majority opinion should look like. your thoughts. i couldn t have said it better, chris. it really is an incredible day today, that the supreme court is taking the prop 8 case, the perry case, as well as the doma case. and, you know, look, when this case was filed almost four years ago, the prop 8 case, we made the case in court that in this country we don t deny our citizens a fundamental right, and the supreme court has called marriage a fundamental right no less than 14 times in the history of this country, and i
down by the court, 5-4 or whatever? the ridiculously named defense of marriage act would be gone obviously. what would it mean to a gay person who is married? that would mean that couples who are married in those states as well as the district of columbia, their marriages would be recognized by the federal government. now, it would mean we still have a lot of work to do and depending on how they rule in the prop 8 case, we would still need other states to move forward with the right to marry. right. but social security, if you were in california, for example, and the appellate court is still upholing that prop 8 or overruling it, if you re in a state, for example, iowa, new york, massachusetts, connecticut, maryland, d.c., maine, vermont, new hampshire, iowa, washington state, if you re in one of those states and you re married legally, you can have social security coverage, right? you can. but you wouldn t have it if you re in alabama. what happens if doma gets struck do
it s going to be a big hit. we ll be covering this all year. the republican establishment is at war with its crazy wing. they say they lost the election because identify logs pulled mitt romney foo far to the right. that sounds reasonable. brong say the right wing. we lost because mitt romney wasn t right wing enough. the winner of this little tango will determine whether gop moves to the center where it might find some votes or becomes an even more fringy party. also, the fiscal cliff. it s down to two people. everybody seems to agree, two people get in the room, the president and the leader of the opposition, john boehner, the speaker. they may be closer, some argue, to an agreement than we think. the question is can they sell the deal to their bases, to their fringies, left and right i must say. plus, republicans say they would change after the lek and they are. guess what? they re changing the rules. some of them are proposing to republicans in pennsylvania and three other stat