Much has happened in the intervening years to change the nation’s attitude toward marriage equality. But most important, the Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 2013. As a result, same-sex couples can legally wed in 19 states and the District of Columbia. And the bans on same-sex marriage in all the remaining states have been challenged in federal court.

With the exception of U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana, federal judges have ruled in favor of marriage equality in each case since the demise of DOMA. This has advocates excited at the prospect that the Supreme Court could hear a case on the question of whether there is a constitutional right to marry for same-sex couples as early as this coming term. But high court tea-leaf readers were given a major assist by the Notorious RBG, otherwise known as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

AD

AD

Speaking at the University of Minnesota Law School yesterday, Ginsburg told the audience to keep an eye on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. According to the Associated Press report of the event, Ginsburg said that if the 6th Circuit follows the trend and overturns same-sex marriage bans there would be “no need for us to rush.” But if the decision bucks that trend and upholds same-sex marriage bans, “there will be some urgency” for Ginsburg and her Supreme Court colleagues to weigh in, she said.

Before the DOMA ruling, Ginsburg was widely known to be cautious about the court getting ahead of the people in the way it did with abortion rights in Roe v. Wade. “My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum that was on the side of change,” she said at the University of Chicago Law School in May 2013. When it comes to marriage equality, the momentum has moved from the people to the courts.

“Having people close to us who say who they are,” Ginsburg said in Minnesota yesterday, “that made the attitude change in this country.” And that attitude change won’t be complete until the Supreme Court grants a constitutional right to marry for same-sex couples. An action that would allow the court to catch up to the nation, not the other way around.