Gay marriage declared legal across the US in historic supreme court ruling

Gay marriage declared legal across the US in historic supreme court ruling

... Excerpt

 

 Rainbow lights shone on the White House to celebrate Friday’s US supreme court ruling.

 

 

With 5-4 ruling in Obergefell v Hodges, justices determine right to marriage equality is protected under constitution in decision hailed as ‘victory of love’

Same-sex marriages are now legal across the entirety of the United States after a historic supreme court ruling that declared attempts by conservative states to ban them unconstitutional.

 

In what may prove the most important civil rights case in a generation, five of the nine court justices determined that the right to marriage equality was enshrined under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.

 

 The scene outside the supreme court on Friday was pure joy.

 

 

Victory in the case – known as Obergefell v Hodges, after an Ohio man who sued the state to get his name listed on his late husband’s death certificate – capped years of campaigning by LGBT rights activists, high-powered attorneys and couples waiting decades for the justices to rule. It immediately led to scenes of jubilation from coast to coast, as campaigners, politicians and everyday people – gay, straight and in-between – hailed “a victory of love”.

 

The ruling, in which Justice Anthony Kennedy cast the deciding vote,means the number of states where gay marriage is legal will rise – albeit after some stalling – from 37 to 50.

 

 Jaque Roberts, left, and her partner of 31 years, Carmelita Cabello, right, show off their marriage license in Austin, Texas.

 

 

“They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law,” Kennedy wrote in his opinion for the majority. “The Constitution grants them that right.”

 

Speaking from the White House after calling one of the plaintiffs, Barack Obama said the decision would “end the patchwork system we currently have”.

“This ruling is a victory for America,” the president said. “This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free.”

 

 

 George Harris, 82, and Jack Evans, 85, kiss after being married by Judge Garcia on Friday in Dallas County.

 

 

Four liberal justices and Kennedy rejected claims made by lawyers during the legal argument in April that marriage was defined by law solely to encourage procreation within stable family units – and therefore could only meaningfully apply to men and women.

 

“The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,” wrote Kennedy.

 

“The petitioners in these cases seek to find that liberty by marrying someone of the same sex and having their marriages deemed lawful on the same terms and conditions as marriages between persons of the opposite sex,” he added.

 

Crucially, the majority ruling argues that the court has frequently exercised jurisdiction over the definition of marriage in previous cases and is not overstepping its constitutional role by intervening now.

“This Court’s cases have expressed constitutional principles of broader reach. In defining the right to marry these cases have identified essential attributes of that right based in history, tradition and other constitutional liberties inherent in this intimate bond,” wrote Kennedy.

 

President Obama Calls Gay Marriage Plaintiff to Personally Congratulate Him