Gay Marriage Has Its Day in U.S. Court

The state-by-state approach to legalize marriage for gays has largely failed; could advocates soon make progress on the national level? On Monday, the first federal trial to determine whether the U.S. Constitution requires marriage for gays begins. Is the lawsuit, led in tandem by former Bush v. Gore adversaries Ted Olsen and David Boies, doomed to fail? A New Yorker article looks at how the case is splitting the gay-marriage movement. Though activists are begrudgingly supporting Olsen’s case, they worry that their attempt to push a U.S. court—and probably, eventually, the Supreme Court—ahead of public opinion on the issue will inevitably fail. After the Supreme Court upheld a sodomy ban in 1986, it took 17 years to revisit the issue.