1 minute ago 2010-01-03T22:18:47-08:00
Three days into the hearing, the issue of same-sex marriage was raised for the first time -- in the context of a 37-year-old court ruling that Judge Sotomayor said she'd need to brush up on.
It's called Baker v. Nelson, and involves a 1972 ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court that said it was OK to prohibit gay marriage. The two University of Minnesota students who wanted to marry -- Jack Baker and Michael McConnell -- appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, contending that their constitutional rights were being violated.
The high court dismissed the appeal "for want of a substantial federal question" and the decision became a binding precedent for lower federal courts. In essence, the court was saying that a state's decision on same-sex marriage doesn't raise federal constitutional issues.
But the whole question may come back before the Supreme Court again before long. Several lawsuits are in the works challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of the same-sex marriages that six states have now legalized.
-David Crary, AP national writer, New York
