marc solomon?> i think justice kennedy's position is marriage has always been in the province of the states, the states determine what eight marriages and what it is a and the federal government simply recognizes for the purpose of federal treatments and respect, recognizes marriage performed the state with the exception of marriages of gay couples. and they were talking about how important all of these different protections, federal protections are from edie windsor having to pay $363,000 in estate taxes when her wife died, if her partners and had been theo instead of thea, she would not have had to pay any taxes. it goes on and on. there are these typical stories of married couples, married in their state of new york or iowa or washington and on and on or just treated as a legal strangers by the federal government. >> i want to play another excerpt of the supreme court's oral arguments wednesday when justice elena kagan focused on the underlying motives of congress in passing the defense of marri

. >> bill: marc solomon is joining us on our news line this morning. from the freedom to marry. find out more about their efforts at freedomto freedomtomarry.org. front page of "the new york times" article sure you've seen where former president bill clinton who signed doma in 1996 now says it was a big mistake. he regrets it. he's asking the court to overturn it. do you think they will? >> i do. i do think they will. i do think -- the defense of marriage act basically says that we don't care what your state says about marriage. we don't care if iowa and new york have allowed gay couples to marry. we're not going to recognize it. we're going to treat married gay couples from around the country as legal strangers but treat married heterosexual couples as fully married. >> bill: at the federal level. >> at the federal level exactly. >> bill: you started to say huge implications. >> yeah, so the woman edie windsor whose case is being heard tomorrow, and i'll be fortunate enough to be in the courtroom for that one is -- she was with her partner for 40 plus years until her partner pa