
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says she is "very optimistic" the Supreme Court will strike down a 1996 law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman for all federal purposes, leading a chorus of Democratic lawmakers asking the judges to do so.

The federal government has a "powerful interest" in a single, uniform definition of marriage, even if it excludes gay unions that are legal in individual states, the lawyer defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act said Wednesday as the Supreme Court concluded two days of landmark arguments on gay marriage.

It is possible that in June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court may fatally damage the institution of marriage by using a nonexistent clause in the Bill of Rights.

Lady Gaga may belt out that gays are "born this way," but questions about the origin and unchangeability of homosexuality are central to at least five lawsuits, including two before the Supreme Court next month.

The Supreme Court will take up California's ban on same-sex marriage, a case that could give the justices the chance to rule on whether gay Americans have the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals.

As hundreds of same-sex couples took their long-awaited wedding vows in Washington state Sunday, the constitutional battle in Washington, D.C., over gay marriage was just getting started.

The running fight over gay marriage is shifting from the ballot box to the Supreme Court.

A federal appellate court in Manhattan said the federal government's marriage law is unconstitutional, raising the likelihood that gay marriage will end up before the Supreme Court.

A federal appeals court in New York is set to take its turn Thursday at considering the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law restricting the recognition of same-sex unions that already has been struck down in several other places.