Supporters of California Proposition 8 put their case before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, in their final move to try to salvage the law that prohibits same-sex marriage in California. The case gives the court a new option to address same-sex marriage, after the Obama administration asked it to take up a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act earlier this month. The Prop 8 supporters' 497-page petition makes the case that the California law, which voters passed in 2008, does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner was one of the first to dig into the content of the petition:

Arguing that "[u]nique recognition of a unique relationship in no way disapproves or dishonors other relationships that the State has chosen to recognize differently," the Proposition 8 proponents ask the court to take the case to correct the "manifest errors" of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and "to return to the People themselves this important and sensitive issue."

The court is likely to pick up at least one of the same-sex marriage cases before it in the next term, SCOTUS Blog's Lyle Denniston wrote, noting that "The Court has never decided, after full review, a case on gay marriage.  It also has never specified the constitutional test to be applied to laws that are claimed to discriminate on the basis of sexual identity." If the court doesn't pick up the Prop 8 case, that will be the end of the legal wrangling about it, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision ruling it unconstitutional will stand.

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Adam Martin