This week, the United States Supreme Court is scheduled to address two cases before them on the issue of same-sex marriage. The federal Defense of Marriage Act case is scheduled to be heard on Wednesday. The other case involves California's Proposition 8. A ruling is unlikely to be made until June.

The federal case involves the denial of privileges afforded to heterosexual married couples on the federal level, and the legality of states to opt out of recognizing legal marriages performed in other states in the union and to deny state benefits for those couples.

<name>John Eastman</name>, law professor at Chapman University and chairman of National Organization for Marriage, a group that opposes same-sex marriage, believes the eventual ruling will be a close one, with Associate Justice <name>Anthony Kennedy</name> likely to be the key swing vote. <name>Eastman</name> is quoted by U.S. News and World Report as saying of <name>Kennedy</name>, "All eyes are on Justice <name>Kennedy</name> and he's obviously written the two major gay rights decisions in the past decade and a half and that means that people rightly think that he's kind of open to taking this step, but he has studiously avoided taking that step in prior cases." Other court watchers agree with this sentiment.

In the lead up to the hearings, a number of high profile politicians have expressed their support for same-sex marriage including Democratic Senator <name>Mark Warner</name> of Virginia, Democratic Senator <name>Claire McCaskill</name> of Missouri, former Secretary of State <name>Hillary Rodham Clinton</name> and Republican Senator <name>Rob Portman</name> of Ohio. Earlier this month, 40 United States senators signed a legal brief arguing against the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that was submitted to the Supreme Court.