studies. you re wrong, absolutely wrong. megyn: no, no, give it back in a second, tony. you can say i m wrong, but when you have a chance to go in court you were silent. the truth of the matter is that you should read in front of this court, and the brief in your group, but you haven t been able to produce a single public health psychiatric child welfare association that has i ve got to go, up against a hard break and tony, ask you, separate apart from the mom and dad issue, what we ve heard from the supreme court justices, years of history on this and why should we be the arbiters of what s okay in the country. do you see this as more of a democracy issue for the states? look, the states are working this out. if it was inevitable as some would like to say, the court should interject itself in this. look, you don t make radical public policy changes like this overnight. there are unintended consequences when we do things like this. it s being worked out
that mean for gay marriage in this country? evan wilson, founder and president of freedom to marry and tony perkins, family research council. gentlemen, thank you both for being here. good to see you. good to be with you. megyn: let me start with you on this, tony, doma had a tough day in court and in doma s defense it didn t have the federal government there to defend it. normally they get the defense of the department of justice and president obama declined to do that in this case because he doesn t believe the law is constitutional. and they hired a skilled advocate, he defended the law. and if struck down, what does that mean? as you know, megyn, there are two components to doma, one is protecting the states and their definition of marriage and the question today the federal definition of marriage, what doma does for the federal government. defining it as you said as a man and a woman. the fact that the government
question before the court. megyn: that gets right to it, what is the i m short on time and i want tony s response. what is the reason? he is right that it seems like the court is accepting that states can draw a line somewhere. it s not just going to be anybody can marry anybody or anything. it s that the state can draw a line somewhere. but he says there has to be a compelling interest in the argument how compelling the interest has to be. there has to be a good reason and tony, let s get to that. let s get to what is the reason that gays should not be allowed to marry. let s look at historically why the government has defined marriage as it has. it s followed the national definition of marriage and we have amassed decades of social research that shows the government has a compelling interest for kids to grow up with a mom and a dad. not just two parents, but a mom and dad and why government extended benefits to marriage because marriage benefits society. if you want to talk abou
stocks sliding today over concerns about cyprus, one day after the dow notched its biggest gain in three weeks. and the banks are getting ready to open after weeks. and cyprus decided to head off the fiscal crisis grabbing 40% of the accounts that big depositors keep in the cyprus banks. breaking news out of the u.s. supreme court this afternoon as initial reports from today s argument on gay marriage suggests it was a tough day in court for those defending the federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. the defense of marriage act or doma as it s non, which president clinton signed into law in 96 excludes federal benefits to married same-sex couples. so at a federal level, gay marriage is not recognized under doma. if the court decides that law is unconstitutional, what does
countries, the federal government doesn t issue marriage licenses, all married couples get all kinds of federal protections and responsibilities, tax treatments, immigration protections, access to health care, social security, and so on, and except for gay couples who are you don t have to get married twice. we get married in new york, i m married, period. that s right, for more than 200 years the practice has been the federal government honors the marriage legally celebrated, but there s a gay exception created by this law. what the court was looking at today can you have a gay exception to a law? can the federal government say we re going to honor all marriages that states license except the lawfully married gay couples who are going to get none of the federal protections and responsibilities, not the taxes they pay and the social security. megyn: the woman who brought this case is an 83-year-old woman who got married to her partner in canada and the partner died and she had t