Finally!

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether California’s Proposition 8 marriage amendment is constitutional and whether the federal government can refuse to recognize gay couples’ marriages for tax purposes and other reasons, the court announced Friday.

Decisions in both cases, by the court’s practice, are expected by the end of June.

The questions of federal standing aside, the Supreme Court should make a definitive ruling – one way or the other.

Do the states have the right to decide their own marriage laws, or is there a federal right to a same sex marriage?

We will see in late June 2013.

But, there are OUTS!

The SCOTUSblog live blog reports: “Prop. 8 is granted. So is Windsor. Those are the only two marriage cases granted.”

SCOTUSBlog’s live blog continues: “Prop. 8 is granted on the petition question — whether 14th Am. bars Calif. from defining marriage in traditional way.” No surprise there — except perhaps to Jeffrey Toobin. The Court then added a question of its own: “Whether the backers of Prop 8 have standing in the case under Art. III.” So the court may avoid ruling on the constitutionality of Prop 8 by saying that the case should not have been allowed to proceed in the first place — which I gather would mean that the lower court decisions are off the books, as there was no jurisdiction in the cases that would allow them to be decided.