E.J. Graff is the author of What is Marriage For?: The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution (Beacon Press, 2000) and an advocate for same-sex marriage.

Charles A. Cesaretti is executive director of the Center for Sexuality and Religion, which helps faith communities sexual spiritual health and justice. It is based in Wayne, Pa.

Lou Sheldon is chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, a conservative group that wants a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage, ban same-sex unions and ban gays from receiving benefits of any such unions.

Salim Yaqub is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He specializes in U.S. foreign relations and is a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where he wrote about the relationship between Americans and Arabs in the 1970s.

Beverly LaHaye is founder and chairman of the Concerned Women for America, a conservative group that opposes same-sex marriage.

Juan E. Campo is associate professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He specializes in the comparative study of Islam, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia, and teaches courses on Islamic tradition; religion, politics and society in the Persian Gulf region; Islamic mysticism; and modern Islamic movements.

Cecilia Elena Rouse is a professor of economics and public affairs and dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Maggie Gallagher is president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy in Washington. D.C. and a co-author of The Case for Marriage.

Clive R. Belfield is associate director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York. He also is an assistant professor of economics at Queens College, City University of New York.