Buckle your seatbelts, here we go again

The Supreme Court has announced the date for oral arguments in the gay marriage cases. From Scotusblog:

The Supreme Court on Monday released the schedule of oral arguments for the sitting that begins March 18, showing that the two cases on same-sex marriage will be heard — one on each day — on Tuesday, March 26, and Wednesday, March 27. The case on California’s “Proposition 8″ will come first, followed by the case on the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act; each case is scheduled for one hour of argument, although the fact that each is to be heard alone will allow the argument time to be expanded, and that appears likely.

A very long engagement: about Edie Windsor (Video Sunday)

Edie Windsor is the plaintiff in Windsor v. United States, which is the DOMA case that the Supreme Court has decided to hear.

This is her story.

Where we are legally

Scottie Thomaston at Prop8TrialTracker has an excellent run down of all the legal cases around marriage and DOMA.  And there are  a lot of them:

The Supreme Court
Gill v. OPM:
Massachusetts v. HHS:
Windsor v. USA  
Golinski v. OPM 
Perry v. Brown, 

The District Courts
Blesch v. Holder 

The Appeals Courts
Dragovich v. US Dept of Treasury:
Pedersen v. OPM
Windsor v. USA   (Petitioning to skip this step)
Golinski v. OPM:(Petitioning to skip this step)

Another DOMA case fast-tracks to SCOTUS

Edie Windsor is 82 years old and in poor health.  She married her partner Thea in Canada and her marriage was recognized by NY State.  But when Thea died, the IRS socked Edie with a massive estate tax bill, because the government refused to recognized Edie's marriage.

Having won in the lower court, Edie's case is now on appeal directly to the SCOTUS, bypassing the 2nd circuit, and joining several other cases already on appeal.

From Chris Geidner: 

"The constitutional injury inflicted on Edie should be remedied within her lifetime," said Kaplan, a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, in a statement. 

Windsor's petition comes after three other cases were petitioned in late June and early July by the Justice Department and the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), controlled by House Republican leadership, regarding DOMA's constitutionality, albeit for different reasons. The Obama administration instructed the Justice Department to stop enforcing DOMA in February 2011 declaring it unconstitutional. As a result, the BLAG has sought to defend DOMA with the hope that it will be found constitutional by the courts. 

Regardless of the whether the Supreme Court decides to consider Windsor's case, oral arguments are scheduled to begin in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in September.