Same-sex marriage set for big day in federal court

"It's a high-stakes poker move, no doubt about that," said Jane Schacter, a professor of constitutional law at Stanford University. "I think the calculation for a long time has been that it's hard to count five votes in favor of same-sex marriage on the current Supreme Court."

Two couples are asking Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker to rule that same-sex marriage is a right embedded in the Constitution, and that it was violated last year when California voters passed a ballot measure confining matrimony to members of the opposite sex.

In the San Francisco courtroom, however, the spotlight is not on the gay male or lesbian pair, but on the odd couple representing both: Theodore B. Olson, a conservative Republican, and David Boies, a famed litigator and Democrat. The two are close friends who were on opposite sides in Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court case that decided the 2000 presidential election, but they found common ground pressing for constitutional recognition of same-sex marriage.

"From a conservative standpoint, people who wish to enter into the institution of marriage wish to enter into something that is the building block of our society, and that is itself a conservative value," said Olson, who served as solicitor general under President George W. Bush.

Said Boies: "This team really sends a message that this isn't a question of anything to do with political ideology."