The Supreme Court will consider four major same-sex marriage cases from Michigan, Kentucky, Chicago and Tennessee, making it possible for a ruling that could bring marriage equality to all 50 states.

It was agreed upon to hear a challenge to state laws that still ban same-sex marriage in several states. The case asks the supreme court to declare the constitutional right to marry.

The supreme court has scheduled two and a half hours for oral arguments. The arguments have not yet been scheduled but will most likely happen in April followed by a ruling in late June to early July. These oppositions to gay marriage bans will have a much larger impact than those decided by the court in 2013. United States v. Windsor, forced the federal government to recognize gay marriages, and Hollingsworth v. Perry, made California the 13th state to allow them.

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These cases never resolved whether gays and lesbians have a Constitutional right to marry and whether states do or do not have the right to ban same-sex marriage. If the court ruled against gay marriage, what would happen to those same sex couples already married in Nevada? What would happen to those couples if they moved to another state? These questions should make you more positive about the outcome.

The court knows it would be a huge mess to go backwards once all these states have started allowing same sex couples to marry.

Joshua Newville, a lead attorney who is representing 13 same-sex couples throughout North and South Dakota stated that by the court not deciding cases last year, means they have really already decided the cases. He stated, “It is extremely unlikely that the court will rule against marriage equality,” “The practical effect would be that states which passed same-sex marriage laws already, and those where the decision was made at a state court level, would be fine. States where a federal judicial decree gained them marriage equality, in the immediate term would be fine, unless someone with standing tried to challenge the decision to reverse it. That would be a tricky concept. These are the reasons we believe that there is no way the court could rule against us. No one really wants to answer this question, because it is simply too tricky.”

Evan Wolfson, the founder and president of the advocacy group Freedom to Marry, said prior to the court announcing it would hear the appeal, “After decades of debate and litigation, we have made the case for the freedom to marry already; the justices—like the American people—no doubt already know the answer, and it’s time now to bring the country to national resolution.”