The Five Things You Need to Know About the Supreme Court’s Gay-Marriage Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed—finally—to say whether the Constitution protects gay marriage. Here are answers to the five questions you’re asking:

1. What’s been the holdup?
Actually, the justices are moving with what in their marble-pillared realm constitutes a sprightly step. Yes, the debate about gay marriage has raged for a while. Massachusetts became the first state to recognize same-sex unions 11 years ago. But the issue crystalized at the highest court in the land only in June 2013. That’s when the justices struck down a 1996 statute that banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, had signed that statute, although he’s since disavowed the position, as has his wife, Hillary, the presumed Democratic front-runner in the 2016 presidential race. It’s important to recall that until recently there’s been a bipartisan consensus in Washington opposing gay-marriage rights. Now the Supreme Court could finish a startling shift by declaring that the constitutional right to “equal protection” requires that homosexuals have the same access as heterosexuals to the civic advantages of matrimony.