New York's Highest Court Set to Rule on Gay Marriages Wednesday

From the NYT:

In what one legal scholar called a contest between judicial hearts and minds, parsing of legal texts and private sympathies, New York's highest court is expected to rule Wednesday on whether to permit gay and lesbian marriages in the state.

There are several directions the Court of Appeals could take, lawyers said. The most sweeping would be a clear affirmation of a constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry, which would make New York the second state in the nation after Massachusetts to allow such marriages. In that case, the court could order the Legislature to rewrite the state's marriage law.

Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, suggested that a majority of the six judges deciding the case — a seventh recused himself — are personally sympathetic to what the plaintiffs are asking for. But the issue, he said, will be how they read New York State's marriage law, the state constitution, and legal precedents, which are all different from those in Massachusetts.