balance their between subscription, pay, and advertising. one of the reasons we distribute foreweets through the api can is that you guys amplify or bolster your reporting with these tweets and go ahead and advertisers around them. we don't participate in that revenue and that's perfectly fine. we are happy to have this complementary relationship. is -- what does the future hold for twitter in terms of your move into video. you talk about a screen experience with twitter broadcasting live tv events. where do you see the money being made in these new avenues that go beyond the 140 character texts. >> i think twister as a complement to tv -- twitter and tv are remarkable together. when i watch and even now without my device in front of me or without that twitter stream, it feels like the volume is off. the founder of blufin labs calls this the sound track for tv. we just launched a program called twitter amplified in with we will provide users a short segment of something that just happened on a show like a sporting event -- lebron james blogging the guy on the spurs. on the spurshe guy and might be a 10-15-second video and you can tune in on a particular channel. those are compelling and useful and i think those -- there will be excellent business models for the broadcasters because, even in the launch, we were embedding super short pre roll ads is new money for both participants, the networks and dust. those have been great and super successful and users love them because they get a lead of something that literally just happens. if you are in the home office and you see this happen, you wee to go watch the game and will see this being used as a leading up to pre-recorded shows. a first-run episodes of "pretty low liars'"is about to air and here is 8 seconds of what is happening tonight that will be beneficial to the broadcaster and us. thosext version of streets are already happening so i think the 140 characters with the associated canvas of a short video will be great evolution. i think more and more of a twister as the 140 characters as a caption to a canvas that can be much more rich. it might be a video. it might be an application. it might be a pole. as a news organization conducting some live poll on twitter where the tweens is the poll question and the canvas is the poll and as people answer it, the cameras will change. it could save 90 seconds and tell this poll closes. the beauty is it can go everywhere. it can be embedded depuyt that is also embedded in washington post.com and on people's tablets and android phones and on their desktops and everywhere else. that evolution, as we think about our platform, toward the end of this year, will become more and more rich and the is the firstfy hint of that. of captions and i have heard you refer to this as envelopes of different content. i would expect the user interface, that stream, which is difficult to navigate still, this will change? think the general nature of the stream will actually be pretty close to what it is today. i like the way it expense. -- expand. we will see. i don't want to say that we will never do something but it is very easy to see how you can start to go down a path for things start to get too noisy to quickly. say -- i am making let's just say that be poll tweets will always open in the stream. more highly engaged and where are we? you can think about where is the line? is it photos? is it tweets with photos and audio are expended but nothing else? we will experiment and see what works. i want to make sure that we are always optimizing for the user experience and the simplicity of the product over thumbtack think more things on to it. >> can we talk about your cultural influence? with all due respect, >> uh-oh. >> i will be gentle. i sometimes have to take twitter holidays. it is a little overwhelming. there is this feeling and anxiety that when you are on twitter -- it can be of little distracting. do you feel that twitter sometimes is contributing to to much noise in society? >> no. [laughter] >> is our attention span to small? >> think so. what is your advice? >> you're just not comfortable without indefensible it is. >> you are a busy person, a ceo of a big company, a global company, how do you use bridger effectively so it does not bog you down? >> get to choose the accounts to follow on twitter so that your home stream is what you want it to be. were quiet asoisy you like based on volume and variety of accounts to follow. prune myo go ahead and own home time library the list of accounts i follow with some regularity, if i feel i'm getting too much noise from these accounts or they are not delivering value -- people should be going in there and doing that for themselves on a regular basis. i think it has saved me a remarkable amount of time in that i do not have to go check the number of sources that i used to check regularly if there is an update. i can just look at my home time line on twitter, my main feed, and see quickly whether there is anything new in some particular thing that i am interested in. >> i looked you up. you'll only follow 300 people but you have 1 million followers. >> that goes up and down. things i ambased on interested in investigating about a product like how does this particular group of users use the product. is a different than the way these people use it, etc. >> how do you consume news? is it for the people on your time line that you follow? if you wake up at 5:00 a.m., do you pick up a newspaper? >> i follow a bunch of news accounts on twitter from a variety of subjects. i will check twitter and bill read the detailed article -- and i will read the detailed article. i would say i've read more detailed articles because of my home time line on twittered that i would otherwise. awould not be able to have source to check that. >> are we on time? pretty good? one thing you do as a leader -- managers roomful of and editors of newspapers -- one thing i understand you do as a leader is you have what is called tee time? it is off the record weekly sessions with your employees? it is everybody. what is the value of that and tell us what you do that? was instituted long before i got up to twitter. when the company was started, they had this every week. that very important to me everybody understands what i understand. i tell my managers this all the time. class and iix-hour stand up in front of the new managers in the company or experienced managers that we have hired in and i teach six hours and i tell them how want them to manage. i have a couple of pages of notes to remind me of what to say but it is an interactive session. i start off by saying that it you are passed out for five -- by 5:55 minutes to make sure everyone understands what you understand. some leadership problems stem from individual contributors not having the context that management has and management thinking they have the context. do atf what i tried to this all hands meeting, tea time -- we will go through an answer 5 every week, five employee answers. employees can't vote or voted down a question and we will answer 5. after a board meeting, every board meeting, i will stand up in front of the company and said this is what we talked about at a board meeting and these were the board's concerns and here is how we responded to their concerns and here's what they want to see more of next time. everybody in the company sees exactly what our strategic metric look like a where we are against our quarterly goals against those metric and we update week to week. everybody has the same context exiting the weak throughout the company for what is going on in the company and you don't have the left and right and thinking two different things. we extend that to a bunch of other -- most of the folks in your our managers -- we extent that broadly throughout the company in our san francisco world headquarters. none of the conference rooms are clear glass. everybody in the company can see what is going on in any room in the company. the exception is there are two public conference rooms in the ninth floor lobby of one very big one for sales meetings. engineers who sat outside the room got tired of being distracted. with those exceptions, you can see what is going on in any conference room in the company. any meeting of more than a couple of people, you have to send out notes for that meeting. we have an internal tour and anyone else in the company can subscribe to the notes of that meeting. that the benefit is -- if you are behind a car and there is tinted glass, you cannot see and other people cannot see. 99% of the people in this room do not think of themselves -- there must be something horrible going on in that car or to the person from of a car otherwise they would be moving. we tell them to go. if the top of the car was ripped off and you could see the driver was having an emergency with a baby in the back and there is someone crossing the street in front of a car, you would be patient now that you know what is going on. the sale thing is true in a company when you have people over here and they are engineering and people over there are sales and these people are wondering what the it is not asdoing, fun a place to work and you don't have the context. i have heard you say a mission statement -- >> i will correct you if you are wrong. >> i have heard you call your mission as agribusiness in a way that makes us proud? >> that is what our core values. it is not a mission. >> how can you continue to do that as you go public? >> it is fascinating to me that it is almost always the case the people will ask me question this way -- as you grow as a company, there will be your desire to do the right thing by users will be at loggerheads with your desire to make money. the fascinating thing is it is almost always the case that tension is between two different things to do for the users and not the right thing to do for the users and the right thing to do for the business. for example, we allow people to use an alias. the type in a user name. one reason that is important is because we think the ability to use pseudonyms facilitates political speech in countries where political speech is not particularly welcome and that is great but the flip side of that is when i can hide behind anonymity, it is easier for me to act like a troll and go into some celebrities twister page and swear at them up and down all day and call them names. that tension is always the attention we struggle with. the tension between the business and to do the right thing for the users has been largely over dramatizing and fictional. my answer is always -- if you do the writing for the user, we will figure out the way to monetize that it we should make money as an artifact of doing the right thing for the user and generate the best use our expertise and not think of those two things as things that have to compete. the idea behind grow our business in a way that makes us proud is we felt that things like, statements like "don't be evil"you can kind of move the line. you could say this is not really evil because we did not kill anyone. [laughter] this will allow us to look at something and say is this something we are excited to announce or will we not tell everyone because we are not excited about this. we would get requests in the first year we were running our advertising. the bird on aer home page and if you change it to a football, with our logo, we will pay you x dollars for one day only we decided those the kinds of things that grow our business in a way we are not proud. we will take a more difficult path of monetizing the platform through things like promoting tweets on our content unit and hopefully that core value allows us to have a discussion about some things that people think are over the line. >> we will open this up for questions. i'm sure there is lots of folks -- if you can identify yourself, that would be terrific. considered ever toaking the tweet number 21500? characters, six seconds per line is sacrosanct. i want to get back to prism, i see you smiling, i would like to know whether you are invited or instructed by the federal government to participate in this program and whether you chose to turn the government legalnd if you did that objections, what were those legal objections? this is where i say i cannot comment specifically on this. i will go back to the first thing i said which was -- when we get specific pointed legal valid,s that are legally we work with the authorities to determine what is legally valid and respond to them. when we receive general requests that we feel are overly broad, not valid legal requests, we push back on those. it is fair to say -- as has been reported in other cases like wikileaks -- we will spend time and energy and money to defend our users' rights to be informed about the information being requested about them. that is how i would answer that question and that is all i can say about it. relatinga question to how journalists used twister. you have a limit of 2000 accounts that somebody can follow unless they've got a certain number of followers. we have multiple journalists in our organization who clearly are using twitter and a non-spmmy way, engaging with the community, who maybe have a way and they have two dozen followers and your customer service people have been helpful on this. that seems like an easy thing for twitter to solve this if twister wants to be valuable for news organizations. >> there is a range of related the capabilities and pieces of functionality like rate limits on live treating advanced that are a lot -- atweeting @ events that we could do a better job of. p -- things that you think are relatively easy to address and 1000e turn out to be priorities of the engineering team that we need to deal with. i completely understand what you're talking about. it is definitely the case that, historically, we have -- when we started dealing with spam, we dealt with it with brute force and all accounts are created equal. we will go through things like the ability to follow the number of accounts or number of tweets per minute,etc and we need to be understandingbout and not all accounts are created equal and this account is more obviously a spamming account than others and there is a bunch of work for us to do on our api so that is available to the hundreds of millions of accounts we have. >> i have also watched live at me witho treated their connection to their weight loss web sites. journalists to work effectively. we have -- the amount of energy, time, dollars, people overall resources that we spend dealing with spam would probably surprise you -- in almost remarkable ways. caseways seems to be the that if you just do this, you can block these spammers. the reality is they are extremely nimble and change their tactics rapidly and to have to come up with scalable solutions to deal with them. we spent an extraordinary amount of time on that. i spent a significant amount of time on that. racesone of these arms that you get way ahead of them and it dies down for a while and they create a new path around that and it picks up again. it goes back and forth and i think that will continue to be the case for quite some time, frankly. what are some of the best ways you see news organizations using twitter and some of the worst ways? think some of the best way is they use twitter are when captions to aur thoughtful analysis or synthesis of something may be that even other people are reporting on it helps you understand that this is a synthesis, it bought all synthesis or analysis of this other thing being reported. those of the kind of things that draw people in. they then realize that i already heard that that of news of this is not just another tweet with that same news. that is an important way for news organizations to think fort that it is the case some news organizations, particularly those in specific subject matter areas or that are known outside of social media for having a specific personality -- it is helpful when they bring that personality or tone of voice to their twitter account. that goes not just for news organizations but for organizations in general. if it is a playful brand and the twister can't is playful, that works well for it. if it is a satirical tone of voice and the twister account is satirical, that works very well. the things that don't work well the same trying to jam version of the same headline that the 50 other news organizations are getting. it can be anything. can the sports. it can be at least talking about some gold was just scored three if i am watching the world cup game and brazil scores a goal and i am one of the town and oooooo"hat tweets "gee, might link will probably not be as interesting as someone who's got some commentary about the goal. there might be an assist before the goal or a similarity to a goal scored last year that drives me into that article. that is the way i would think about it. another question? >> there have been people who suggest that as companies need to act more like digital companies. can you talk about how you run twitter and what news companies might learn from that? -- i am twitter extremely open with my employees about what is going on in the company. by default mode is to trust them so when we have a very confidential project we are working on, by default to telling them all about it. -- i default by telling them all about it. twitter music, our relationships with apple, the integration into ios - those were all things we told people in the company when they were ready well in advance of the public announcement. it has been the case on occasion that people within the company leaked that information and we try to make it clear that that will not be tolerated at all. we will have very much a zero tolerance policy about it and, if you do this, you may think and tou are outfoxing me curry favor with somebody but the reality is you are hurting your fellow employees because we want to be able to do these things. i very much the fault to more openness and allow people to have a context for what is going on. when they have context, they can be more productive. our office space is completely open. there are cubicles. we tried to move into a space where the floor plates were really big, like 80,000 square feet, so people did not have to go up and down stairs and elevators. we have grown and as we grow, people have to do that more and more but, again, large teams can fit in one open space and people can see what is going on and i think that is important. >> coming up on the next "washington journal," the daily caller will discuss the supreme court ruling on the voting rights act, a defense of marriage act, and immigration legislation in the senate. then, more on the supreme court gave marriage decisions, voting rights, and immigration legislation with representative joseph crowley of new york for it later, a look at diplomatic immunity and the role it plays in the case of the nsa bleaker edward it snowed in. matthew lee the associated press will be our guest. "washington journal" is live every morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> acting irs commissioner testifies today before the house ways and means committee on the irs targeting of conservative groups. our coverage is at 10:00 a.m. on cspan 3. >> the supreme court wednesday struck down the federal provision denying benefits to legally married couples. the defense of marriage act prevented married couples from receiving a range of tax, health, and retirement benefits that are generally available to married people. the vote was 5-4. also, the supreme court cleared the way to resume same-sex marriages in california. here is reaction from supporters and opponents in front of the supreme court. >> amicus curia in both cases regarding same-sex marriage. i have just come from the courtroom where the opinions have been filed in both cases. i will make statements on behalf of the evangelical church alliance, which represents thousands of evangelical clergy from around the country, as well as 350 military chaplains. theou have already heard, court has struck down the defense of marriage act as unconstitutional. and has found no standing on of part of the advocates proposition 8 in california. thosee addressing both of outcomes on behalf of the evangelical church alliance. asrches like ours, as well traditional christians who advocate for marriage as between a man and a woman. no matter how any of us feel about the outcomes in these cases, one thing is true. the supreme court has no authority when it comes to the nature of marriage. that authority belongs to the creator whom our founders declared is the source of all our rights. the public conversation over marriage continues and that is a good thing. ofn it comes to the defense marriage act, there are a myriad of perspectives among evangelicals and other christians of traditional faith, but some believe it is best to get the federal government out of its many areas as possible, including marriage. so there are those of us who are disappointed with the court's action on doma, while others say, yeah, another tooth has been extracted from the federal monster. on proposition 8, the question of whether the people will get to decide for themselves how marriage will be practiced in their states appears to await another day. and that's a good question to pursue. we are disappointed in the short-term results and the short-term questions that remain unsettled, but the public conversation continues and that's a good thing. one thing true about today's court's decision on marriage, they do not change the biblical or timeless truth of the nature of marriage as between a man and a woman. but just as importantly for christians of traditional faith like evangelicals for whom i speak, today's decisions are an invitation to look at the reality of same-sex couples and families differently. through the lens of god's love to administer mercy to all people. the gospel is open to all regardless of their sexual orientation or the configuration of their family. our is a challenge that folks need to meet and in prayer and with god's wisdom i know we'll meet it. i'll be making extended remarks and leading a brief prayer service from the podium just to my right following the other comments at these microphones. thank you. schenck, paul catholics united for life. i concur with my brother's statements. >> reverend rob schenck, s-c-h- e-n-c-k, chairman, evangelical church alliance. >> my name is jennifer kerns, k-e-r-n-s, i was the official spokesperson for prop 8 in california. i am here today on behalf of the seven million voters in the state of california who voted for proposition 8. i am here today because the state of california has a system of direct democracy more than seven million voters voted for proposition eight in 2008. and more than 10 million voters in the mid 1990's for proposition 22. while i have been quiet for the last five years for this proposition to take its course in our legal system, i'm here today on behalf of the seven million voters in the state of california to express our disappointment. we believe every vote should count. thank you. jennifer my name is kerns, and i was the spokesperson for prop 8. i'll be over here if you need any additional comments. huelskampsman tim from the state of kansas. issue some comments about this issue. in the decision today the supreme court has offered two very contradictory rulings. on one hand they claim to make a decision the states have a right to decide the definition of marriage. the second decision they said the states' voters do not have the right to decision. and the dissent on the first decision was very clear. this court has taken upon itself the attempt, radical attempt to redefine marriage. i think what gets lost in this judicial attempt to short circuit the democratic process is the needs of our children. with this decision the courts have allowed the desires of adults to trump the needs of children. every child deserves a mommy and a daddy. and with this decision they undercut the needs of our children. >> u.s.a. u.s.a. u.s.a. u.s.a. thank you thank you. thank you. thank you. u.s.a., u.s.a. u.s.a. u.s.a. u.s.a. >> we need some space here. get on that side. >> good morning. i'm adam, the executive director of the american foundation for equal rights. it's been my great privilege to be here this morning with the plaintiff's legal team and founding board members of the american foundation for equal rights. speaking first will be david bois. >> this is a great day for america. 10 years ago today the united states supreme court in lawrence vs. texas, took the first important step to guaranteeing that all americans, regardless of sexual orientation, were equal citizens under the law. supremee united states court in two important decisions brings us that much closer to true equality. in the decision striking as unconstitutional the so-called doma, or defense of marriage case, the united states supreme court held that there was no purpose for depriving gay and lesbian couples of the right to marry the person they love. there was no legitimate justification for that. as justice scalia noted, that holding, that principle, guarantees the right of every individual in every state to marriage equality. in the california case, the supreme court held that the proponents of proposition eight did not have standing. what that means in that case the supreme court could not reach the parents. merits. but everything that the supreme court said in the defense of marriage opinion where they did reach the merits demonstrates that when that case finally does come to the united states supreme court on the merits, marriage equality will be the law throughout this land. our plaintiffs now get to go back to california and together with every other citizens of california marry the person they love. and the next step is to translate the promise that was in lawrence and it was reaffirmed today in the doma case that every citizen in every state has the right to marry the person that they love. the supreme court's decision on standing is important for another reason. when we started out in this case, we said we were going to prove three things. we were going to prove marriage was a fundamental right. and the other side accepted that. we said, second, we were going to prove that depriving gay and lesbian citizens of the right to marry the person they love seriously harmed them and seriously harmed the children they were raising. with that. and third, we said we were going to prove that allowing everyone to marry the person that they loved, regardless of sexual orientation, did not, could not harm anyone. and not only did the proponents on cross-examination have to accept that, but today the united states supreme court said as much because they said the proponents have no concrete injury. they cannot point to anything that harms them because these two loving couples, and couples like them throughout california, are now going to be able to get married. so this is a wonderful day for our plaintiffs. it's a wonderful day for everyone around this country and california in particular that wants to be able to marry the person they love. but it's a wonderful day for america because we have now taken this country another important step towards guaranteeing the promise that is in our constitution, in our declaration of independence that all people are created equal. that all people have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. this is a great day. we thank the supreme court. we thank all of you. and perhaps most importantly we thank all of the people who have devoted so much to this battle over so many decades. people who did it at a time when it was not as easy as it was for ted olson and myself to go into court. the overwhelm thing i regret today is my friend and colleague ted olson can't be here. he has been a leader in this battle for the last four years. he is unfortunately today in another court, in another part of the country arguing another case. but his spirit is here and he will be with me tonight and we will celebrate because this is a victory not just for us, not just for the plaintiffs, not even just for the people who have worked for this so many decades, but for all americans. thank you. [applause] >> we'll now have comments from chris perry and sandy, plaintiffs in the case. foroday is a great day american children and families, sandy and i want to say how happy we are not only to be able to return to california and finally get married, but to be able to say to the children in california no matter where you live, no matter who your parents are, no matter what family you are in, you are equal, you are as good as your friends' parents and as your friends. we believe from the very beginning that the importance of this case was to send a message to the children of this country that you are just as good as everybody else no matter who you love, no matter who your parents love. and today we can go back to california and say to our own children, all four of our boys, your family is just as good as everybody else's family. we love you as much as anybody else's parents love their kids. and we are going to be equal. now, we will be married and we will be equal to every other family in california. thank you. [applause] >> today we want to say thank you to all of you. thank you to our supporters. thank you to our amazing lawyers. thank you to the constitution. and thank you to justice that was served today in this court with an amazing day. we thank the justices for overturning doma. it's so, so important for us and all families. and we thank the justices for letting us get married in california. but that's not enough. it's got to go nationwide. we can't wait for that day. it's not just about us. it's about kids in the south, it's about kids in texas. and it's about kids everywhere. we really, really want to take this fight and take it all the way and get equality for everyone in this entire country. thank you-all. it's been a pleasure and an honor to represent you. [applause] >> we'll hear from jeff and tommy, also plaintiffs in the case. [applause] >> i don't need these. our desire to do something and get involved in this case, to be plaintiffs, was very important to us. perry changed the conversation. it altered the game. it created a groundswell of momentum and passion that brought us here to the supreme court today. backtoday the court said that i am more equal, that we are more equal, our love is just like our parents and our grandparents, and that any children that we may have in the future will be more secure. i look forward to growing old with the man i love. our desire to marry has only deepened the last four years, as has our love and commitment to one another. we look forward to using the words married and husband because those words do matter. they are important. i said it in my testimony in court, if they weren't important, we wouldn't be standing here today. i'd like to give special thanks to ted and david and the entire legal team, but ted and david specifically because their passion for equality is only trumped by the size of their heart. i'd like to thank chris and sandy for taking this ride with us, to chad for his amazing strategic vision. to adam and the entire team at the american foundation for equal rights. and for the support that we have received from countless people we don't even know but who will benefit just as profoundly from this ruling today. thank you very much. american. [applause] >> i'm not sure i can add anything after those three great statements. including our amazing lawyer. today's a great day. we entered this building we always see those words, equal justice under the law. and today we are closer to that equality. we are lucky, and we know that the fight continues across this country. we cannot forget our lgbt brothers and sisters that are in states that still discriminate against them and we will not allow it. we'll continue the fight until all of us are equal. prop 8 did one thing. it really helped us turn anger into action. it led to foundation, the american foundation for equal rights. it led to this case and today's victory as well. and we stand on the shoulders of so many people that came before us. people that risked their lives to stand up and be who they are. they gave us the legs to stand up on today. they gave us the momentum to run with and the voice to speak loudly and say proudly that we are gay. we are american. and we will not be treated like second class citizens. although we celebrate today, although we celebrate today we work to make sure that everyone like jeff and i and chris and sandy, we just want to get married because it's the natural next step in our relationship. we want to join the institution of marriage not to take anything away but to strength general it and live up to its ideals. today is a good day. it's the day i finally get to look at the man that i love and finally say, will you please marry me? [laughter] [applause] >> we'll now hear from the co- founder ear current president of the human rights campaign, chad griffin. >> thank you very much, adam. thanks to these incredible plaintiffs and to the legal team led by ted olson and david bois. what a magnificent job they have done representing thousands upon thousands of people in california and ultimately around this country. thanks to these historic decisions today, we are one step closer to finally realizing those words inscribed upon that building behind me. equal justice under law. thisoday at long last nation has wiped away the shame of proposition 8 and the discriminatory defense of marriage act once and for all. but the work of equality is far from complete. of at this moment celebration, we got to rise to this historic occasion with an urgent new commitment, a commitment to the gay and lesbian americans in the 37 states without marriage equality who didn't feel the reach of justice by today's decisions. it took less than five years to strike down proposition 8 and to restore marriage equality to the most populous state in this land. so today let's set a new goal. within five years we will bring marriage equality to all 50 states in this country. >> the lessons of these incredible plaintiffs is that we cannot wait for justice. because they fought tirelessly, every single day, today, americans values have prevailed. it is now up to us to make this historic victory reach every corner of this country because while marriage equality will soon return to california, loving and committed couples in places like arkansas or pennsylvania will soon be waiting for justice and every moment of delight as real life human consequences. places, the these child is born, a parent dies, and the person you love may be rushed to the hospital and the inability to access these basic protections of marriage destroys families and ruins lives. make no mistake about it -- tomorrow is certainly a new day but the sun will still rise on and on equal country and we've got to commit to fight like we have never fought before because, at this moment, apathy and passivity are no better than bigotry. in state legislatures, at the ballot box, in congress, and yet what was so clear today, again, in our federal courts, this movement for equality will advance on all fronts like we have never advanced before. i promise you, in the end, the quality, fairness, and basic human dignity will prevail as it has so many times in this country's history before. thank you very much. [applause] >> finally, we will hear from theodore boutros and then we'll take a few questions. my law partner, dave olson, is in court. i want to say a few words. first of all, proposition 8 is dead. let's let the weddings begin. people can get married in california. \[applause] and the two decisions together, i have copies, really paved the way for what chad griffin just said, marriage equality in this country. with marriage equality back in california, 40% of the population in the united states is covered by marriage equality. and the doma decision, the framework that's laid out by the court in doma, paves the way for striking down marriage restrictions across this country, so this is a huge day and we're so pleased. it's a great day for the supreme court. the court has demonstrated its commitment to equality and justice and fairness, found that gay and lesbian citizens cannot be treated unequally, cannot be treated like second- class citizens. that's a fundamental, fundamental point, and it's going to carry the day. the wave that started four years ago in this country towards equality just got way bigger and it's going to sweep this country and we are going to have equality across this country for all citizens very soon. thank you very much. \[applause] now we'll take your questions. \[phone ringing] no questions. we silenced you. arean francisco, they celebrating right now. we wish we were with you. >> we are on our way to california and we'll see you in los angeles and san francisco in the next day or so. \[applause] may the marriages begin. >> thank you! >> thank you so much. >> congratulations. what a day. >> the u.s. supreme court closed down his term this week and next week will be the oral arguments in some of the high-profile cases. monday night at 10:00, the case of the voting rights act and tuesday at 9:00, all arguments in the case is related to same- sex marriage. theednesday, july 3, challenge to affirmative action at texas university. you can see the oral argument at 9:00 eastern. >> there are about 1400 monuments and markers on the battlefield the. building. is the 18 80's and 1890's as the men who fought in this battle are getting older and want to make sure what they did here is remembered. they will do that by building monuments. in modern times, we have other ways of commemorating things like that the back in those days, that is how they commemorated the service here. this is a monument to the soldiers, monuments to their leaders. the monuments really help us interpret this story. the monuments are placed on the ground or the battle was fought for it most of the monuments are union monuments. if the battle is a union victory nor the state, quite honestly, by the time the war ends, there's not a lot of money in this out to build monuments especially in a northern state. >> live, all the coverage of the 150 anniversary of the battle of gettysburg, they started at 9:30 eastern with historians, scholars and authors. it is followed at 5:30 with your calls and tweets for the gettysburg historian. at 8:00, the commemorative ceremony. there will be dramatic readings of eyewitness accounts of the battle followed by a candlelight procession to the cemetery. at 9:15, morse calls and tweeds all day sunday, on american history tv on c-span 3. >> coming up, "washington and tweets.rcoals live at noon, u.s. house returns for work oil and gas drilling legislation. discussnutes, we will the supreme court rulings on the voting rights act, defense of marriage act, and immigration legislation in the senate. at 8:30, more about the supreme court rulings with congressman joseph crowley of new york and at 9:15, a look at diplomatic immunity and the role it plays in the case of the nsa leader edward snowden. >> today is a good day. today i finally get to look at the man that i love and finally say, will you please marry me? [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] 3] host: that was the scene on the steps of the supreme court yesterday. now what is your turn to react to the gay marriage decisions by a the nine justices. numbers --