ON Tuesday morning, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, the same-sex marriage case. But the proceeding won’t be broadcast on radio or television or live-streamed on the Internet. (Or photographed.) Anyone trying to follow the justices’ questions and the lawyers’ answers will have to wait for journalists in the courtroom to tweet or blog about them. The court’s sole concession to the intense public interest in the case will be to release an audio recording of the arguments later that day — instead of later in the week, which is the custom.

Despite countless entreaties over the years from groups calling for “sunshine” and “transparency,” and giant changes in technology and communication, the court has been unmoved. It banned cameras from the oral argument held the day before it decided Bush v. Gore in 2000. Ditto when it overturned decades of campaign-finance law in the Citizens United ruling in 2010. Twice in the last four years, the court has heard arguments about Obamacare. But the only people who got to see and hear them were the 500 or so lucky souls who stood in line — some for nearly a week — to get a seat.

The court has never formally given a reason, though over the years, justices have let slip their rationales. Antonin Scalia has complained that only “a few C-Span junkies” would watch “gavel to gavel” coverage. Anthony M. Kennedy doesn’t want to introduce an “insidious dynamic” in which justices might be “saying something for a sound bite” or ask questions “to grab a headline.” Clarence Thomas once said video coverage would compromise his colleagues’ “anonymity.” David H. Souter vowed that “the day you see a camera come into our courtroom, it will roll over my dead body.” (He has since retired.)

Americans should be able to watch their institutions work in real time, just as they do with White House news conferences, congressional hearings and the like. All 50 states permit some audiovisual coverage of court proceedings — as do the Supreme Courts of Britain, Canada and Australia.