The official U.S. Supreme Court transcript in the case of the City of Grants Pass vs. Gloria Johnson, et al., (on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated) contains 168 pages, give or take the appendix, and more than 32,000 words.

The C-SPAN recording of Monday’s oral arguments in the matter of the Grants Pass camping regulations and their legal implications for the city’s homeless population, runs for just shy of two-and-half-hours.

Lawyers representing the city, the homeless, and the federal government spoke, and answered questions from all nine justices. Outside the Supreme Court building, and across Oregon, rallies were held. Newspapers across the country have weighed in recently over whether the regulations “criminalize” being without shelter.

That’s a lot of give-an-take about an overwhelming issue — for Grants Pass and across the country — that seems no closer to a permanent solution now than it has ever been.

Still, perhaps the most pertinent words spoken Monday came from Chief Justice John Roberts.

“Why do you think,” Roberts asked, “these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?”

Why, indeed.

That the idea of sanctions on the homeless for sleeping has made it to the highest court in the nation tells us more about our country than it does those without shelter, city governments, or our court system.

It’s become a war of words over moral and ethical dilemmas. At one stage of Monday’s hearing, the legal team for the city found itself promoting and defending the notion that being “homeless” was not a status but a matter of personal conduct, so it could not be considered legally equivalent to laws recognizing “drug addiction” as such.

“Well, homelessness is a status,” countered Justice Elena Kagan. “It’s the status of not having a home.”

And so it went. Question and answer; parry and thrust. Was someone who was out stargazing and fell asleep breaking the law? Could the nominal fines and jail time required under the Grants Pass law be considered “cruel and unusual punishment”?

Officially, the U.S. government itself was not a party to the case but, during the proceedings, Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler said the city had overstepped with its ban on sleeping on public property.

“If you can’t sleep, you can’t live, and, therefore, by prohibiting sleeping, the city is basically saying you cannot live in Grants Pass,” Kneedler said. “It’s the equivalent of banishment.”

There’s truth in that, as well, that there are those in the housed populations of any community who would rather the homeless who live on their streets and in their parks be … someone else’s problem.

Cities pass ordinances and states, including Oregon, have passed laws regarding the conduct and status of the homeless. And yet, on Monday in the nation’s capital, 32,000-plus words were shed seeking, in the words of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, “where to draw the line.”

Roberts was right to ask whether the justices were the best people to make such policy judgments — because the search for clarity on ethical and moral dilemmas must begin within.