Anyone who has been paying attention to the news in the past month or two will probably have noticed that the issue of gay marriage has become pretty prominent lately. Iowa's supreme court ruled to allow it in April, Maine just legalized it, New Hampshire is just about to legalize it (if they haven't already; I'm not sure whether their governor has signed off on it as of this moment), Washington DC decided to recognize gay marriages performed in other states, Vermont's legalization will be coming into effect soon, there's been talk of repealing the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, and even Ms. California's comments on the issue have apparently become newsworthy. Now it looks like the issue is going to play a big role in the nomination hearings for whoever Obama picks to replace Justice Souter on the Supreme Court (Souter retires in June). Conservatives in congress, like Orrin Hatch and Jeff Sessions, have been indicating that they'll be very interested in the nominee's views on the issue, to the point that there's been speculation that the gay marriage issue might supplant abortion as the traditional "litmus test" social issue that court nominees get grilled on. Conservatives don't want to see a court that might make a significant national-level ruling on gay marriage in the same way, for instance, that the court ruled on abortion in Roe v. Wade. Obama has reassured these conservatives that he's not going to try to appoint a "radical", but of course Barack Obama's idea of a "radical" isn't going to be the same as Orrin Hatch's idea of a "radical", and as Hatch noted recently, "Presidents always say that. That's why we have the hearing process".

Thoughts on the consequences of Obama's SCOTUS pick for the gay marriage issue?