"These people and their adopted children are harmed by your law [banning same-sex marriage]. The question is what is the offsetting benefit of your law. Who is being helped?"

Asked Judge Richard Posner, as the 7th Circuit heard argument today in cases challenging Wisconsin and Indiana law.

Based on the linked news report, there was nothing new to be said on the well-worn subject, even with Posner on the panel. But I will listen to the argument, here (Wisconsin) and here (Indiana), and update this post if I hear anything notable.

It seems predictable that the 7th Circuit will reject the ban and that the issue will soon be decided by the Supreme Court. 

ADDED: I've listened to the argument and recommend it. It's lively, and the government lawyers are on the run, but repeatedly cornered by the simple and predictable demand to articulate an interest served by excluding gay people from marriage. All of the judges clearly reject tradition as the interest, and the idea of leaving it to the legislature is repeatedly scoffed at as merely getting us back to the need to at least show some legitimate governmental interest. There is a great deal of attention to the welfare of children, with the government lawyers stressing the capacity of heterosexuals to produce children and the value of channeling this phenomenon into stable relationships for the sake of the children and the judges unable to see the reason to exclude gay people, who may also have children, especially given that the states in these cases both allow gay people to adopt. Why do the states want to hurt those kids? I lost track of the number of times the government lawyers were stymied by that question.