GALE NORTON, Colorado Attorney General: Our position has been that Amendment Two preserves the status quo, that it allows the people of Colorado as a whole to make the decision about the issue of sexual orientation, and the Justices, through their questioning, saw that issue as being one of the primary concerns.

SUZANNE GOLDBERG, Lambda Legal Defense: The Constitution forbids the singling out of one group of people for different political rules, and today, through our briefs and argument, we made that clear. Amendment Two is a patent of the Constitution for all of the reasons we’ve discussed, but it’s also absurd. And I think that many of the questions today pointed that out.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Now, legal analysis of today’s case. Stuart Taylor, senior writer at "American Lawyer" and "Legal Times," is with Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Stuart, thank you for joining us. What is at issue in this case?

STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: Basically, the state’s voters by initiative adopted what almost comes down to a right of the people to discriminate against homosexuals. It’s more complicated than that. What had happened is that some of the cities in Colorado, Boulder, Denver, and Aspen, had passed gay rights laws. You can’t be fired for being a homosexual. You can’t be denied housing for being a homosexual. The voters of the state basically wiped out those laws with this referendum and said, localities cannot adopt gay rights laws, cannot adopt laws banning discrimination against gays, and nor can the state legislature. So if homosexual people want to get relief from discrimination in Colorado, they have to pass a constitutional amendment getting rid of this one, which apparently doesn’t seem politically likely.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That’s Amendment Two, and then something like 57 percent of the voters of Colorado voted for it.