I wanted it not to be true. I wanted it not to be her plane. I wanted it - I wanted, if it was her plane, to have somehow survived because she was in the back of the airplane. But we know that doesn't happen, not with those sorts of things.

Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples?

She said it had been hijacked shortly after takeoff. By this time, the plane had been in the air - again, I'm presuming that it took off on time - for over an hour.

The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that marriage is one of the most fundamental rights that we have as Americans under our Constitution.

The plane took off at 8:10 in the morning - or that's when it was scheduled to take off. And that's when I believe it took off. I had been in my office at the Department of Justice. Someone told me that there had been the two strikes that occurred at the World Trade Center.

I immediately called the command center of the Department of Justice to let them know that my wife was on a plane that had been hijacked. I mainly wanted them know there was another hijacked plane out there.

The reality is that our independent judiciary is the most respected branch of our government and the envy of the world.