Lawyers, activists, students gather for history at Supreme Court
WASHINGTON — Regina Seltzer, 85, left her home in Bellport, N.Y., at about 10 Monday night, took the Long Island Rail Road to Manhattan and caught a 1:30 a.m. bus to Washington just to be at the Supreme Court on Tuesday to be part of history.
The court is hearing oral arguments on whether same-sex couples have the right to be legally married, and Seltzer was part of three distinct crowds that had gathered Tuesday morning.
On the sidewalk in front of the court, people who had waited for days for a seat in the courtroom were filing in, while more visitors were arriving for the right to spend a few minutes in the seats the court sets aside for observers to sit for a few minutes each.
On the plaza in front of the iconic marble building, protesters gathered from both sides. Religious groups held signs denouncing gay marriage or quoting Scripture; gay rights advocates waved signs and flooded the area with supporters in matching T-shirts.
But Seltzer was in the third, quieter spot — a line of more than 100 lawyers in business suits who enter the court through a side door. They have seats set aside in the court room and an overflow lounge as well where they can watch the arguments.
"It's history in the making," Seltzer said. "I love coming to the Supreme Court. I was coming to the Supreme Court long before I was a lawyer."
Seltzer said she became a lawyer at 50 and now does pro bono law mostly on environmental cases.
But the gay marriage case, she says, is part of a broader movement of civil rights in America. "I was involved in the civil rights movement, I was involved in the feminist movement," she says. The gay rights movement "is the next step."
On the other side of the court lawn, some law students had waited days to be part of the same history.
Darienn Powers, 21, a Syracuse University law student, was among the dozens sleeping on the sidewalk over the weekend waiting for a seat inside. She said she had written her undergraduate senior thesis about gay marriage legal issues and had written her law school admission essay about sitting in line in 2013 for a seat to watch the Supreme Court debate California's ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage.
Beyond her interest in the subject, "I also just want to watch oral arguments because someday I hope to argue before the court," she said.
In the plaza, Arlene Goldberg stood quietly Tuesday morning as all around her same-sex marriage supporters and opponents dueled on megaphones for the loudest chants.
The 67-year-old real estate agent from Florida had wanted to see her fight through to the end.
Goldberg was one of a group of same-sex couples who filed a federal lawsuit in 2014 to strike down Florida's ban on same sex marriage. Her love of 47 years, Carol Gold Wasser, died of an autoimmune disease on the same day their lawsuit was filed.
When she died, Florida's death certificate said she was single. Goldberg couldn't even sign to have her wife cremated as she'd wanted. Gold Wasser's father had to do it.
She won in court and the new death certificate is the first Florida document to recognize a same-sex marriage, she said.
"I played a small part in all of this," she said, looking around at the throngs of mostly supporters around her. "Our generation made a difference. We were able to stand up so that these kids now see equality as the way it's supposed to be."
Jairo and Sara Baquero, pastors for the evangelical church called God's Army based in Boston, led a prayer circle in Spanish. He called on God to guide the justices to rule against same-sex marriage.
Later, Jario said, "we are here in defense of what the Lord wants, marriage as an institution only between a man and a woman. The word of God says no to marriage between homosexuals. It's an abomination."
His wife, Sara, said they do not hate gay people, but they believe being gay is a sin. And with the changing demographics in the U.S. as the number of Latinos grows, she said it is important for them to spread the word about the importance of traditional families.
"We have to speak up," she said.
Paste BN captured the scene outside the Supreme Court today in full 360-degree video. In the player below, scroll around in either direction to experience the panorama.
Contributing: Shannon Rae Green
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