Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON ( — The Supreme Court will take up in the spring two cases over the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. In orders issued Dec. 7, the court agreed to hear a case over California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, and one out of New York over the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines a marriage as being between one man and one woman.

The cases likely will be on the court’s calendar for argument in March, with a ruling before the end of the term in late June. After weeks of court-watching when the petitions for review of more than half a dozen cases over the same-sex marriage were on the justices’ list for consideration, the orders Dec. 7 suggested the justices worked at covering multiple bases in what they granted, noted court-watchers at the Supreme Court blog, SCOTUSblog.

The orders focused on two issues: how marriage is defined and whether same-sex couples who are legally married are entitled to the same kind of spousal benefits as heterosexual spouses. Saying he prayed that the court would uphold the traditional definition of marriage, which the Catholic Church supports, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the court’s decision to take the cases is a “significant moment for our nation.”