Keep one eye on the Supreme Court today and tomorrow, as it holds its "Long Conference" about all the petitions it got over the summer. In the mix are five cases asking the same question: Are bans on same-sex marriage constitutional? Join me below as I split into multiple personalities to explain it.

Wait, they're having a hearing today?

It's not a hearing. It's an administrative meeting where the judges sit down and decide what cases they'll hear next. The proceedings are secret. The Supreme Court Historical Society describes ritual handshakes and particular seats at the table. I'm sure it's all very nerdy. They discuss the cases and vote on whether to take them. It takes only four votes to "grant certiorari."

What are the cases under consideration?

There are seven of them, emanating from three different federal courts of appeal, striking down bans in five states: Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, Oklahoma, and Utah. If that math seems confusing, blame the fact that the definition of marriage is governed by state law, and salt that with the pride of lawyers. As Adam Liptak detailed in the Times last week, there is a lot of jockeying among them to be the counsel that argues the historic case whenever the Court chooses to hear it.

Is the Court definitely going to decide to take one of these cases today?

Almost no one thinks the Court will turn down all the gay marriage cases today. But it's not clear that they will grant certiorari in any of them just at this moment either. Last week, Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave a talk at the University of Minnesota's law school where she hinted that the Court is waiting for a federal appeals court to deviate from the trend and uphold a gay marriage ban. That would create a "circuit split" and lead the Court to step in.

If that is indeed what the Court does, theoretically a circuit split could happen soon. The Sixth Circuit has yet to deliver its decision in an appeal heard in July on cases in Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee, and observers at the time seemed to think there was a chance it could uphold a gay-marriage ban. The Fifth Circuit is also gearing up to hear appeals of gay-marriage ban decisions from Louisiana and Texas, and as noted by Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog, its roster of judges is so conservative there's a good chance of a split consensus there too.

The truth is, the Court can just keep putting off the gay marriage cases until it feels like taking one.

That would be anticlimactic.

Yes, it would. The arc of history bends towards justice or whatever, but sometimes it's a really slow ride on the alleged rollercoaster.

But why does the media keep saying things happened fast, gay-marriage-wise?

They both did and didn't. It's been just over a year since the Court held 5-4, in United States v. Windsor, that Section 2 of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. The Court actually refrained there from pronouncing directly on the constitutionality of gay marriage.

That led, yes, in part to the sudden avalanche of decisions and appeals in federal courts on this issue.

That said, there are a hell of a lot of gay families out there who believe this can't happen fast enough.

Is there some way in which I can mock Justice Scalia in connection with this?

The nation's greatest hater of rock-and-roll can at least be credited with seeing the writing on the wall here. He churlishly bitched about it in Windsor, which he basically said was a Trojan horse for gay marriage:

By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition. Henceforth those challengers will lead with this Court's declaration that there is "no legitimate purpose" served by such a law, and will claim that the traditional definition has "the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure" the "personhood and dignity" of same-sex couples, see ante, at 25, 26. The majority's limiting assurance will be meaningless in the face of language like that, as the majority well knows. That is why the language is there. The result will be a judicial distortion of our society's debate over marriage—a debate that can seem in need of our clumsy "help" only to a member of this institution.

(Scalia also pats himself on the back in passing for seeing this coming as early as Lawrence v. Texas, the anti-sodomy case.)

Many of the decisions striking down gay marriage bans cite that passage of Scalia's dissent. You could read that gleefully, thinking Scalia didn't predict the consequences; I don't know that I buy that. I think he probably knew full well. "That is why the language is there." It gives Scalia a pretext to complain, again, that he predicted all of this. And thus compliment even as he behaves like the absolute sorest of losers in judgement. That is the Scalia way.

[Image of a pro-gay-marriage protester in Utah via AP.]