CINCINNATI, OHIO -- State attorney Aaron Lindstrom had 30 minutes Wednesday to make his arguments in Michigan's appeal of a March court ruling that declared the voter-approved same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.

But he spent most of that time answering rapid-fire questions from judges.

The state argues that voters in 2004 had rational basis for passing the ban and that overturning the law demeans the democratic process.

"This is an issue that's left to the states," said Lindstrom during the hearing at the Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse in Cincinnati on Wednesday afternoon.

It's rational, he argued, for voters to believe that "in general, it's better that children have a mother and a father... There are differences between a mother and father and there are benefits to having each one."

U.S. 6th Circuit Appeals Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey consistently challenged his arguments.

"Isn't that a little hypocritical, then, to allow people who can't pro-create to marry?," she asked.

She also pressed him to differentiate between banning same-sex marriage and prohibiting interracial marriage, which was prevalent in many states until a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia.

"That was a vote by the people of many states against interracial marriage," she said.

Lindstrom countered that race doesn't play a role in the fundamental definition of marriage.

He argued repeatedly that voters having a rational basis for the enacting the ban is enough to uphold the law, and that the people of Michigan could reverse the decision on their own, without court intervention.

"There's at least a rational basis and that's all that is necessary," he said. "... This is something that the people could elect to change tomorrow... It's at least rational to wait and see."

Daughtrey also pointed to a lack of demonstrably ill effects of gay marriage in the decade since it first became legal in Massachusetts.

"It doesn't look like the sky has fallen," she said.

Lindstrom said there hasn't been enough time to measure the effects.

"It's too early to tell when you change such a fundamental bedrock of society," he said. "The big picture is it's simply too early to tell.

Judge Jeffrey Sutton also challenged Lindstrom, suggesting that fundamental elements of marriage could simply be viewed as "love, affection and commitment."

"If you think about marriage just through that lens, it does get difficult to show the difference between one group being eligible and the other not," he said.

Sutton also pressed Carole Stanyar, attorney for the plaintiffs, when her time came.

(More on the plaintiffs' 30 minutes: Judge presses lawyer on why gay marriage rights pursued through courts, not votes)

The arguments were made in the courthouse's oversized en banc hearing room, packed with journalists and spectators, who also filled two packed overflow rooms where an audio feed was provided.

Gay rights advocates marched in the street around the courthouse during the hearing and a smaller group of religious activists who oppose same-sex marriage prayed on the sidewalk.

The court was scheduled to hear oral arguments in five other same-sex marriage cases out of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee on Wednesday.

Michigan's case was brought by April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, a Hazel Park lesbian couple who sued the state because they can't jointly adopt their three children without a legal marriage in Michigan.

U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman ruled in their favor in March, finding the voter-approved ban unconstitutional after a nine-day trial in Detroit.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette in his appeal brief argued that overturning voter-approved bans is "demeaning to the democratic process," citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Michigan's affirmative action ban that was handed down earlier this year.

The three-member appeals panel, which also includes Judge Deborah L. Cook, is wasn't expected to issue a ruling Wednesday.