WASHINGTON – When the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court gather for their Nov. 30 conference, they will face an array of same-sex marriage related petitions that have arrived at the court in an unusual confluence of timing and strategic litigating.
Scheduled for that conference are 10 petitions, which, after counting cross-petitions as one, essentially make seven cases. The majority home in on Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). That section defines marriage for all federal purposes as between one man and one woman.
