Supreme Court Rules Same-Sex Marriage a Right

(Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

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The U.S. Supreme Court issued a watershed ruling Friday in favor of gay marriage, resolving the legal issues surrounding one of the most contentious civil rights questions of modern times and ending a decades-long battle for marriage equality fought in state legislatures, courts and at the ballot box.

The ruling was 5-4.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority: “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were.”

Kennedy was joined in the majority by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in dissent, characterized the decision as an affront to democracy.

Friday’s decision comes during a time of historic support for same-sex-marriage, and thousands of people camped outside the Supreme Court building for days cheered wildly, waved gay and U.S. flags, hugged and cried when the decision was announced.

Attitudes across the country have shifted swiftly and dramatically in the last decade, according to public opinion polls. Only 27 percent of Americans thought gay marriage should be legal when the Gallup Poll began posing the question in 1996; last month, support had soared to 60 percent, up from 55 percent just a year ago.

“Today is a big step in our march toward equality,” President Barack Obama tweeted within minutes of the ruling. “Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else.”

Hillary Clinton’s campaign twitter account said simply: “Proud.” She has also changed her account photo to reflect her support for the decision.

Mike Huckabee, a GOP presidential hopeful and one of the most visible members of the Republican party, issued a scorching criticism of the decision.

“This flawed, failed decision is an out-of-control act of unconstitutional judicial tyranny,” he tweeted.

Jeb Bush, another GOP candidate for president, also criticized the decision.

“Guided by my faith, I believe in traditional marriage,“ Bush said in a statement. “I believe the Supreme Court should have allowed the states to make this decision.”

The case before the justices – Obergefell v. Hodges, a consolidation of cases in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee – pitted states’ rights against individuals’ right to marry, and traditional marriage against more modern iterations of the union.

The split ruling was met with cheers among the throngs of people gathered outside the Supreme Court building, some of them for days.

In his dissent, Chief Justice Roberts, wrote the Constitution was the loser of the day.

“Understand well what this dissent is about: It is not about whether, in my judgment, the institution of mar­riage should be changed to include same-sex couples,” the chief justice wrote. “It is instead about whether, in our democratic republic, that decision should rest with the people acting through representatives, or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law. The Constitution leaves no doubt about the answer.”

Obama called and offered his congratulations to Jim Obergefell, the real estate developer and the man behind the lawsuit that led to Friday’s ruling. He sued after Ohio officials refused to allow him to put his name on the death certificate of his spouse, who he had legally wed in Maryland.

Obama said Obergefell’s leadership will bring about lasting change in this country.”

Obergefell told the president he has been honored to have been part of the fight, and to “live up to my commitments to my husband.”

“So I appreciate, I appreciate everything you’ve done for the LGBT community and it’s really an honor to have become part of that fight,” Obergefell said.

“Well I’m really proud of you,” the president added. “Not only have you been a great example for people but you’re also…going to bring about lasting change in this country. It’s pretty rare when that happens, so I couldn’t be prouder of you and your husband and God bless you.”

After the conversation, Obergefell said it was ”stunning to have the president say something like that to me.”

“It’s not something I ever dreamed of,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”

In Michigan, one of the states whose voter-bans were struck down in the landmark ruling, most county clerks were prepared to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, rather than wait for the legalese to catch up in state law. In some cases, they said they would waive the three-day waiting period.

The first weddings were expected to be performed in Michigan hours after the historic ruling Friday. Michael Taylor, the mayor of Sterling Heights tweeted: “If your church won’t marry you, come to City Hall and I will!”

Two couples had already shown up at the Kalamazoo County Clerk’s Office to request paperwork, Deputy Clerk Janice Shattuck said. She sent them home until this afternoon until forms striking the words “bride and groom” and “male and female” were available from the Department of Health and Human Services, MLive.com reported. Friday afternoon, though, the clerk said couples would have to wait until Monday to marry.

Several clerks wanted to waive the waive the three-day waiting period.

“I’m not going to make people wait,” Lisa Brown, the county clerk in Michigan’s Oakland County, told The Detroit News. “They’ve waited long enough and they should not have to wait any longer.”

However, Emmet County clerk Juli Wallin said she’s waiting for Michigan to lift its ban. “My plans are to go with the law,” she said.

The first weddings were performed in Michigan hours after the historic ruling. Michael Taylor, the mayor of Sterling Heights tweeted: “If your church won’t marry you, come to City Hall and I will!”

One of the first couples to marry, Del Bryan and Barry Beal, have been together for 40 years. “We’ve been waiting a long time,” Beal, 71, told the Jackson Citizen Patriot/MLive.com. “This decision shows that what we knew was right all along is right.”

They were married in the same Jackson County Courthouse, where another couple, Tom and Tod McMillan-Oakley, were officially adopting their son, Eli, 7, who they had been parenting since 2009.

“There was always a chance, we thought, that (Eli) could be taken from us,” Tom McMillan-Oakley told the Jackson newspaper.

April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, the two nurses who wanted to marry so they could adopt one another’s children and were at the heart of Michigan’s case, told the Detroit Free Press they’ll finally be able to plan their long awaited wedding.

“I’m elated,” a tearful DeBoer said as the landmark ruling came down. “We’re overwhelmed. This is surreal. This is what we waited for. This is what we always wanted. ... I’m speechless.”

Republican Party Chairman Ronna Romney McDaniel decried the ruling as an “unfortunate” decision by “another activist court” that overturns the will of Michigan residents.

In Connecticut, a gay city council official who married his partner of 22 years in a ceremony in Greenwich last year, said Kennedy eloquently articulated the stability that marriage brings to children of same-sex couples.

“History will show that Justice Kennedy and his beautifully written majority opinion got it so right,” Drew Marzullo said. “And when you read the part about family and what this really means to our children I can’t help but smile and at the same time tear up.”

The justices agreed in January to hear the case. A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court dealt gay marriage advocates their first federal appeals court defeat last fall, upholding the bans in the four states and setting the stage for the Supreme Court showdown.

Putting same-sex marriage on the same legal footing with other marriages isn’t obstacle-free.

In Tennessee, another state involved in the case before the Supreme Court, same-sex marriages aren’t expected to take place until next week, after the attorney general offers direction.

Elsewhere, couples were eager to test the waters.

In Mississippi, Amber Cameron, 29, got a one-line email from her partner heralding the news that the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states: “Love wins.

They decided to head down to their local courthouse to get married, Cameron said in an in a Washington Post interview. “We’re just going to go for it.”

Below, meet Jim Obergefell, the face of the historic case decided by the Supreme Court.

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The cases involved 12 couples and two widowers. They cases are:

Michigan: On March 21, 2014, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman ruled against Michigan’s voter-backed ban on same-sex marriage in DeBoer V. Snyder. The case was filed by a lesbian couple who wanted to jointly adopt children, but were prohibited from doing so by the 2004 voter-backed ban on same-sex marriage.

Kentucky: On July 1, 2014, U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn III ruled in Love v. Beshear against a provision forbidding the commonwealth from performing same-sex marriages. That ruling followed a Feb. 12 ruling in Bourke v. Besher that said the Commonwealth could not refuse to recognize valid same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Ohio: Two Ohio cases were consolidated in the appeal before the 6th Circuit. On Dec. 23, 2013, U.S. District Judge Timothy Black ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that Ohio’s refusal to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another jurisdiction was unconstitutional. The case was filed on behalf of Jim Obergefell and John Arthur, who wanted their Maryland marriage to be recognized on Arthur’s death certificate before he died. The court ordered the state to recognize the marriage when Arthur died in October 2013.

Tennessee: On March 14, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger ordered Tennessee officials to recognize three same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. The ruling was later stayed by the 6th Circuit.