U.S. Supreme Court Legalizes Gay
Marriage Nationwide
The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the
U.S. Constitution provides same-sex couples
the right to marry, handing a historic triumph
to the American gay rights movement.
The court ruled 5-4 that the Constitution’s
guarantees of due process and equal
protection under the law mean that states
cannot ban same-sex marriages. With the
landmark ruling, gay marriage becomes legal
in all 50 states.
Immediately after the decision, same-sex
couples in many of the states where gay
marriage had been banned headed to county
clerks’ offices for marriage licenses as
officials in several states said they would
respect the ruling.
President Barack Obama, appearing in the
White House Rose Garden, hailed the ruling
as a milestone in American justice that
arrived “like a thunderbolt.”
“This ruling is a victory for America,” said
Obama, the first sitting president to support
gay marriage. “This decision affirms what
millions of Americans already believe in their
hearts. When all Americans are treated as
equal, we are all more free.”
As night fell, the White House was lit in
rainbow colors – a symbol of gay pride – to
mark the high court’s decision.
The ruling, the culmination of a long legal
fight by gay rights advocates, follows steady
gains in public approval in recent years for
same-sex marriage. In 2004 Massachusetts
became the first state to legalize gay
marriage. But the decision may provoke fresh
legal fights in some conservative, Republican-
governed states.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing on behalf of
the court, said the hope of gay people
intending to marry “is not to be condemned
to live in loneliness, excluded from one of
civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for
equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The
Constitution grants them that right.”
“Without the recognition, stability and
predictability marriage offers, their children
suffer the stigma of knowing their families are
somehow lesser,” Kennedy wrote.
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