article_snippet.sent: (CNN)The justices of the Supreme Court practice politics as much as law -- and that will be clearer than ever when the issue of same-sex marriage comes before the court on Tuesday.
article_snippet.sent: Public opinion on same-sex marriage has turned upside down since the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts first legalized the practice in 2003.
article_snippet.sent: Even the name of the issue has changed -- to marriage equality.
article_snippet.sent: Of course, the Constitution has not changed since 2003, a point that will surely be made by such opponents of same-sex marriage as Justice Antonin Scalia.
article_snippet.sent: To originalists like Scalia -- those who believe the Constitution should be interpreted only as the Constitution was originally understood by the framers -- the idea of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage is anathema.
article_snippet.sent: To those who believe the Constitution should be interpreted only as it was originally understood by the framers --, the Constitution means only what the Constitution meant to those who wrote it -- and James Madison (or the authors of the 14th Amendment, just after the Civil War) never gave a thought to whether those who believe the Constitution should be interpreted only as it was originally understood by the framers -- were granting gay people the right to marry.
article_snippet.sent: After the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts decided United States v. Windsor in 2013, which invalidated most of the 1996 law known as the Defense of Marriage Act, more than a dozen federal district courts around the county said the reasoning of that case required the legalization of same-sex marriage.
article_snippet.sent: These judges allowed these marriages to begin taking place around the country.
article_snippet.sent: Supporters of the existing laws went to the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts and asked for stays of the lower court rulings, because the justices themselves had not yet permitted the marriages to take place.
article_snippet.sent: But in each case, the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts denied the stays and allowed same-sex marriages to proceed -- the marriages are now legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia.
highlights_snippet.sent: Jeffrey Toobin: SCOTUS to decide same-sex marriage as U.S. largely in favor.
highlights_snippet.sent: Jeffrey Toobin: SCOTUS to decide same-sex marriage as U.S. largely in favor says originalists on the court may hew to conservative view, but most of the justices have given clues that the justices see writing on wall .