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On Court’s Steps, Vivid Display of American Society Oral Arguments Echo in Gatherings Across Nation
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Few places draw such disparate cross-sections of American society as the steps of the Supreme Court at a moment of judicial consequence. COLUMBIA, S.C. — Most United States Supreme Court cases, however significant, pass largely unnoticed when they are argued. But the opening of hearings over the legal definition of marriage was a cultural moment that brought America to its front porch.
And on Tuesday the steps were where one could find a home-schooled family from Iowa, a group of Catholic schoolchildren on a field trip and throngs of Pentecostal parishioners crossing paths with a newly engaged lesbian couple from Ohio, a man with H.I.V. and a drag queen. From small prayer vigils in San Diego to rallies in Boston, from Passover Seders to spiritual fasts, the weight of the decision that the nine justices will make was felt in thousands of communities far from Washington.
They all turned up for a mostly civil exercise of free speech outside the court as the justices inside began considering the first of two cases that could lead to profound changes in the way gays and lesbians are treated under the law. Here in a state where sodomy was a felony until 2003 and where 78 percent of voters approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage three years later, about 300 people gathered under a Confederate flag that flies at the State Capitol.
“It’s a political circus, a wonderful political circus,” said Allen Ritter, 45, who slept outside the court for days so he could get inside to hear the case argued. “And it could only happen in Washington, D.C.” Like some others in rallies across the country, they were united in a belief that the cases could lead to profound, positive changes in the way gay men and lesbians are treated under the law.
Representing those who oppose giving gay and lesbian couples the right to marry were thousands of religious conservatives who marched up the National Mall in a demonstration that resembled a church procession, complete with flowing banners, signs citing Scripture and members of the clergy leading the way. Deanne Summer, 54, was one of them. She grew up here, and said she wished more of her gay friends could have shown up for the rally. They were too scared to come, she said.
On the other side of the issue were thousands of gay men and lesbians — some who had married and others who said they wished to someday — and their supporters, who came to witness a moment they said they hoped would become their Brown v. Board of Education. “I didn’t think I’d live to see this,” she said. “But even if they legalize it doesn’t mean people will accept it.”
Two local residents, Mike McFarland, 60, and his husband, Larry Baxley, 45, will have been married for one year next Saturday. (The District of Columbia and nine states allow same-sex marriage.) As they stood outside the court on Tuesday morning, Mr. Baxley held up a dry-erase board on which he had written “We Are Married.” At the same time, others gathered to pray and march in defense of an institution that they believe should be shared only between a man and a woman.
Mr. McFarland reflected on how strange it would have seemed to him as a child growing up in Tennessee in the 1960s to hear that the Supreme Court was considering letting gay people get married. “The views on marriage are not changing,” said Dran Reese, the president of the Salt and Light Council, a Christian group north of San Diego that opposes same-sex marriage. She was at a rally at the San Diego courthouse, praying that the Supreme Court would uphold what has been the traditional definition of marriage.
“When I came out when I lived in Memphis, if two men were caught dancing in a bar they would get arrested,” he said. “It’s amazing. I never felt I’d live to see this day.” “The other side, they have a little more time and a lot more money,” she said. “That’s an unfortunate position for us as people of faith.”
Standing down the block was Fred Smith, 53, who was holding up a sign that said “Don’t be on the wrong side of history” and was covered with black-and-white pictures of the segregated South. The sheer number of people who stepped forward this week to express their opinions spoke to the personal significance of the issue in a nation that has not been so publicly divided on a social matter since the court ruled on abortion 40 years ago or, perhaps, since the battle over racial civil rights before that.
“Being African-American, you are trained at an early age how to deal with people’s stupidity,” said Mr. Smith, who is H.I.V. positive and attended his first gay rights march in 1981. “But you aren’t really trained how to deal with that when your sexuality is concerned. Back then, it was just about being able to work and eat. We could only live in places like West Hollywood so we wouldn’t be attacked.” “Folks are coming out either in support or opposition because this is one of the great civil rights issues of our time,” said the Rev. Angela Yarber, pastor at Wake Forest Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Shannon Glatz, 32, drove to Washington from Akron, Ohio, on Monday night. She said she planned to return to the Supreme Court ground on June 21 and marry her fiancée whether the court affirms a right to same-sex marriage or not. On Monday night, she led a prayer service for a group of about 200 people who hope the Supreme Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage.
“This would mean my girlfriend and I are looked at as a legitimate couple,” she said, “not just as roommates.” The same night, blessings were given in support of same-sex marriage at a Passover Seder in Hamden, Conn. At a Chinese Baptist Church in Houston, a special call was issued, urging the court to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, which limit marriage to a union between a man and a woman.
Not far from Ms. Glatz, danced a drag queen wearing a rainbow tutu, a pink fishnet top and devil horns. Hersign – a taunt to those who condemn homosexuality as a sin – read, “I bet Hell is fabulous.” The topic dominated social media platforms from the moment people woke up Tuesday.
Just down Capitol Hill, demonstrators who oppose same-sex marriage were making their way up to the Supreme Court as the arguments at the court got under way. “Good marriage equality morning!” a New York lawyer who uses “amaeryllis” as her Twitter name greeted her nearly 15,000 followers.
Among them were the Wackers of Garner, Iowa, who used the march, along with trips to tour the Capitol and a few museums, as a civics lesson for their home-schooled children. “Please remember to #pray today as #SCOTUS deliberates these very important marriage cases,” read the first Twitter message of the day from the North Carolina Values Coalition.
Holy Covenant United Methodist Church in Chicago, a small congregation where vegetarian dinners for the homeless are a weekly event, organized a virtual vigil. People were encouraged to take a moment at noon Tuesday to pray for “a pivotal opportunity for far-reaching, lasting change for L.G.B.T.Q. people and their partners.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, a knot of mellow demonstrators with signs and rainbow flags ruffling in the warm breeze gathered on the steps of the California state office complex in San Francisco. As sea gulls called overhead, they played a mix of songs with lyrics that included, “Don’t tell me who to kiss.”
“This is our time,” said Breana Hansen, 27, a graduate student in international and multicultural education. “We want to show the Supreme Court all the people who are going to be affected if they uphold Propostion 8. We’re being heard.”
Billy Ray Bradford, who organized the demonstration, said: “Our lives are in the hands of nine people in Washington. They hold our relationships, our families and future. They get to make the call on whether our Constitution means what it says, equal protection under the law.”
A number of those at the vigil said they were not happy about comments made in court Tuesday by Justice Antonin Scalia, who asked, “When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage?” Kirk Linn-DeGrassi, a dog walker, answered, “The right for marriage equality became a civil right when we signed the Constitution.”
Events had begun even before the court was seated Tuesday morning. On Monday, 75 opponents of same-sex marriage gathered with candles on the steps of the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Courthouse in Phoenix. The group said it believed that it prayers could influence the court.
That night, several hundred people crowded together at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago, wearing parkas and rainbow mufflers to ward off 30-degree temperatures and push for a right to same-sex marriage.
On Sunday night, about 400 people gathered at Los Angeles City Hall for a candlelight vigil in support of same-sex marriage.
The largest of the events were on the Supreme Court steps on Tuesday. The crowd included a home-schooled family from Iowa, a group of Catholic schoolchildren on a field trip and throngs of Pentecostal parishioners crossing paths with a newly engaged lesbian couple from Ohio, a man with H.I.V. and a drag queen.
“It’s a political circus, a wonderful political circus,” said Allen Ritter, 45, who slept outside the court for days so he could get inside to hear the case argued.
Thousands of same-sex marriage opponents marched up the National Mall in a demonstration that resembled a church procession, complete with flowing banners, signs citing Scripture and members of the clergy leading the way.
On the other side of the debate were thousands of gay men and lesbians — some who had married and others who said they wished to someday — and their supporters, who came to witness a moment they said they hoped would become their Brown v. Board of Education.
Just down Capitol Hill, demonstrators who oppose same-sex marriage were making their way up to the Supreme Court as the arguments at the court began. Among them were the Wackers of Garner, Iowa, who used the march, along with trips to tour the Capitol and a few museums, as a civics lesson for their home-schooled children.
“It could be a Roe v. Wade type of decision,” said Cindy Wacker, 40. “I wouldn’t want to look back and say I wish I could have done something. This is something I can do by being here and marching and praying.”“It could be a Roe v. Wade type of decision,” said Cindy Wacker, 40. “I wouldn’t want to look back and say I wish I could have done something. This is something I can do by being here and marching and praying.”
“If we don’t do something now,” she added, “maybe we might lose marriage in our country, and I don’t want my kids to grow up without marriage — one man and one woman.”

Kim Severson reported from Columbia, and Jeremy W. Peters from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Robbie Brown from Atlanta, Ian Lovett from Los Angeles, Dan Frosch from Denver, Jess Bidgood from Boston, and Malia Wollan and Carol Pogash from San Francisco.

Some of the people at the march, like the Wackers, came on their own. Many others were bused in by their churches or made the trip as part of a spring break excursion with their families. A Roman Catholic group called the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property brought a marching band that played, among other songs, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Some came on school field trips, like a group of about 30 students from Pope John Paul the Great Catholic High School in Dumfries, Va.
Their opposition to same-sex marriage was rooted in a wide range of different beliefs: the biblical family unit of a man and a woman, the fact that only members of the opposite sex can procreate, a desire to see government stay out of marriage law and even concern that the country was cowing too much to the will of the politically correct.
Kevin Baechle, who took the train from Ohio with his two daughters and wife, said that he was concerned families with same-sex partners would lose perspective. “I have certain perspectives and ideas,” he said. “And my wife has certain perspectives and ideas. And we need both.”
His 15-year-old daughter, who had already attended another march on Washington to oppose abortion, spoke up. “Can I say something, dad?” she asked. He nodded.
“You need a mom and a dad to make a child,” Maggie said. “You can’t have a dad and a dad just say, ‘Oh, we’re going to have a kid.’ That’s not how it works. I need dad to get the perspective to be stronger, and I needed mom to have the perspective on how to act. And I know if we didn’t have dad I’d be lost, and if I didn’t have mom I’d be lost too.”