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U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Same-Sex Marriage
June 27, 2015
In a landmark decision heralded by gay-rights supporters, a closely divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday that same-sex couples have a fundamental fight to marry, forcing 14 states to join dozens of others — including Florida — where the unions have already been declared legal.
In the 5-4 majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that marriage is “essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations,” “sacred to those who live by their religions” and offers “unique fulfillment to those who find meaning in the secular realm.”
Friday’s decision was issued on the second anniversary of the historic ruling in the United States v. Windsor case that overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
Settling split appellate court decisions on gay marriage bans, Friday’s ruling in the Obergefell v. Hodges case overturned prohibitions in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee upheld by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family,” Kennedy wrote. “In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.”
Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor joined the Kennedy opinion.
In a harshly-worded dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that states should have final say on the matter.
“However heartened the proponents of same-sex marriage might be on this day, it is worth acknowledging what they have lost, and lost forever: the opportunity to win the true acceptance that comes from persuading their fellow citizens of the justice of their cause. And they lose this just when the winds of change were freshening at their backs,” he wrote. The other three dissenting justices — Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — also penned their own opinions.
But Greg Bourke, one of the plaintiffs in the Kentucky case, told reporters that, if left to voters or the Legislature in his state, he did not believe he and his long-term partner, Michael De Leon, would be able to wed in their lifetimes.
“The judge, with all due respect, does not understand what it’s like for gay people in Kentucky,” Bourke said in a telephone interview. “After 33 years together, Michael and I feel like we deserve this opportunity to have our marriage recognized.”
Gay couples in Florida have been able to get married since January, based on a federal judge’s ruling that the state’s voter-approved, same-sex marriage prohibition violated Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of equal protection and due process.
Friday’s ruling clears up any uncertainties about whether U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle’s Florida ruling, issued last August, would stand.
“We have always sought finality on this important constitutional issue, and today the United States Supreme Court provided the clarity our state and country was seeking,” Attorney General Pam Bondi, who represented the state in the Florida lawsuit, said in a statement Friday. “Legal efforts were not about personal beliefs or opinions, but rather, the rule of law. The United States Supreme Court has the final word on interpreting the Constitution, and the court has spoken.”
Friday’s decision ignited intense emotional reaction from both sides, including from President Obama, who said that the ruling “reaffirmed that all Americans are entitled to the equal protection of the law.”
The decision will end a “patchwork system” throughout the country, Obama said.
“It will end the uncertainty hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples face from not knowing whether their marriage, legitimate in the eyes of one state, will remain if they decide to move [to] or even visit another. This ruling will strengthen all of our communities by offering to all loving same-sex couples the dignity of marriage across this great land,” he said.
But Florida Family Policy Council President John Stemberger, the force behind the state’s constitutional ban, vowed that the fight over same-sex marriage isn’t over.
“Regardless of how it appears, today’s decision is not the final word on marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court has been wrong before, as in the case of Dredd Scott when the court attempted to declare that black people were not persons. The court was also wrong in Roe vs. Wade when it effectively declared that unborn children were not persons. Once again, the court is wrong today in its attempt to force all 50 states and all U.S. citizens to legally declare that marriage is something other than the union of one man and one woman,” Stemberger said in a statement.
Kennedy, whose opinion relied heavily on the Windsor decision, also wrote that excluding same-sex couples from marriage hurts children.
“Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant material costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life. The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples,” he wrote.
But Michael Sheedy, executive director of the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that children are harmed by what he called a redefinition of marriage.
“As more and more children are not raised in a family with their own married mother and father in a stable home, it’s a great concern to us,” Sheedy said. “Marriage has been, for millennia, the only institution that unites one man and a woman and any children born in their union. That’s really been the basic building block of society.”
Jacksonville civil rights lawyer Betsy White and her husband, Bill Sheppard, represented two gay couples who successfully overturned Florida’s ban.
White said she expects pushback from state legislatures and others who will try to impose restrictions on gay marriage, similar to what has happened in the decades since the landmark abortion decision.
“Whenever there is an issue that is controversial, you are always going to see a certain segment of society that is going to basically be dragged along,” White said Friday. “It is unfortunate that people hold those views. But from my perspective, it’s not going to hold the progress back.”
The highly-anticipated ruling sparked celebrations from gay-marriage advocates throughout the nation, including in Florida, where events were held from Key West to Pensacola.
Jim Brenner, one of the plaintiffs represented by White and Sheppard who decided to challenge the Florida law, called the ruling “a great day for all Americans because it shows that our system works.”
Brenner told the News Service of Florida that he intends to ignore Roberts’ dissent.
“There really isn’t any reason at this point to bother myself over what he might be thinking,” Brenner, who lives in Tallahassee, said. “Those four justices lost. And that’s all I need to know. For me, what President Obama said this morning was far more important. …We all become more free when everyone is treated equally.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Comments
30 Responses to “U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Same-Sex Marriage”
Chris you’re missing a point. Amazon is a business that can determine what to sell or not to consumers. The government is an entity that ideally looks out for all its people and provides services to all people. You can still buy confederate flags from other thriving businesses online. Amazon just decided to remove itself from the controversy.
It disturbs me more that there are so many more negative comments here about same sex marriage.
And virtually no uproar over the hetrosexuals arrested and/or convicted of sexually molesting children.
Truly shameful.
It’s insane for me to have the knowlege that i cannot purchase a confederate flag from Amazon, but Adam and Steve can purchase a marriage license from our government. Oh, by the way, you can purchase an ISIS flag from Amazon though.
B.I. B.L.E ( basic infor before leaving earth)
ok lets the crazy old man say a few things
1 how many thinks there is a heaven?
ok .. great
2 ok now lets talk about what the bible calls Hel,l a place of torment
do you think one can assist with out the other?
think about it folks
I don’t care if a man dates a man or a woman dates a woman, but i don’t think they should be recognized as married. Come on people its not natural, but it should not be crammed down my throat, keep to yourself, its not something to be proud of, trust me.
@Really America
So you want the world to end over something that doesn’t even affect you?
I WONDER NOW IF A CHURCH AND WHEN I SAY CHURCH I MEAN A REAL CHURCH THAT BELIEVES THE WORD OF GOD IF THE MINISTER REFUSES TO MARY A SAME SEX COUPLE WILL THEY LOSE THERE TAX EXEMPT STATUS IM SURE THAT IS WHAT OBAMA IS SHOOTING FOR
@ Reality check…..yes, you are indeed wrong. The Constitution doesn’t say “separation of church and state” anywhere. Thomas Jefferson penned a letter explaining how a government mandated religion should be avoided (ie the Church of England where the gov’t told citizens, this is the one and only church) but he by no means stated religion should have no part!! That was one of the main reasons for fighting for freedom from England in the first place.
OMG i cannot believe this country is so against God and his will ….Hurry up and take us out of this terrible filthy world
Is this “Freedom” only for the “Bias”. Maybe yo need to look up the definitions.
@Jim
I’d like to know how Christianity has been “outlawed”? Last I checked going to church is still legal. I saw cars in church parking lots this morning. What is NOT legal, is using your religion to tell someone else how to live their life.
Just cause man or woman says it’s ok. It is not. We will reap what we sew. God have mercy on them for they no what they do. The United States Is under attack from within. If the Nation does not wake up it will be to late. What’s next multiple wives and multiple husbands ?
PS
Before anyone says, “If you are that unhappy with this country move to another”, if i had the means, i’d have been gone 20 years ago.
It’s really sad though. Media in all forms glorifying sex and racial intermingling. Men turning into women. Legalizing drugs. Men marrying men. Gays raising children. Abortion. Cloning animals. Child molesters. Child abusers.
Sad that nomatter what happens or with the govt or people surprises me at all. Sad that nomatter how sick someone is or how appalling a new law, my mind and heart are dulled to feeling shocked because of just how awful this country has become.
Regardless of what 5 people in DC say a dog is not a cat no matter how many times you call it a cat.
I hate to be in their shoes on judgment day. God is against same sex marriage hope my grandkids don’t go that way. This world is getting worse and worse. Their is no same sex marriage going to enter heaven God change your minds and go straight God intend for one man and one woman be together not two men or two women
You homo phobes should rejoice!
Now since same sex marriage is protected by the guberment, gays will more likely marry gays.
So instead of closeted gays marrying hetrosexuals, having sex and birthing more gay people, society should now see less gay people brought into the world.
If same sex gays marry each other and stay faithful to their marriage, their will be a reduction in the amount of gays.
And so eventually they will disappear.
If we are to believe the scientists that say being gay is genetic.
#1 We have waaaay more important issues to deal with as a nation and a people
#2 It don’t affect me and unless your gay it don’t affect you
#3 This is just a distraction from #1 and most are falling for it, while our leaders and doing nothing about anything of any importance
Since actual, true Christians know what Jesus Christ said, “take the log from your own eye before you take the speck from another Christians eye”. Then you already know with full knowledge it is as much a sin to “judge”, as be judged. Only Christ possesses the RIGHT and RESPONSIBILITY to JUDGE.
Whats next…the legalizing of prostitution?…..beasteality?….
Everything that’s been happening, is written in the Holy Bible. No one should be suprised by what is going on in the later day’s..
Am I wrong, or does the Constitution of the United States of America not specifically address the separation of church and state? Religion is to not play any role in our government, as said by Thomas Jefferson and crew. Aside from any biblical opposition, there isn’t really much of an argument to be made in the first place. Also, I do note that there are many things that the bible specifically speaks about ( Adultery, Divorce, Gluttony, Slavery, and the list goes on), yet nothing is being done to ban any of those things. Every single person who played a prominent role in the bible also had their flaws (David/Adultery and murder, Noah/Drunk, Samson/womanizer, and the Samaritan women was divorced…more than once). So when sin is mentioned in correlation with homosexual marriage, I find a lack of consistency in the argument. These are now the choices you have, and guess what, they’re not much different than the ones you had before. If you oppose same sex marriage, then don’t marry someone of the same sex. However, you no longer get to dictate who any other tax paying American chooses to marry. Welcome to 2015!
How does giving liberties to someone else take away your liberties?
Sodom and Gomorrah.
The US deficit will soon approach $20,000,000,000,000. and all the worthless federal reserve notes that are being printed will soon send inflation through the roof. This conglomeration of fifty states is doomed.
Prepare to face the onslaught and the Lord.
Dr. Linham, Jim, and John,
It has been a day and a half since the Supreme Court acted. How has your life become worse? Should I be building my ark?
How is your life better if homosexuals cannot marry? Don’t give me anything abstract about the end of Christianity. How has your life been impacted by yesterday’s actions?
WWJD if he were here to observe a committed, loving, homosexual couple being married? Do you think he would be more likely to choose stoning or accepting?
A sad day for America. Began in 1962, with the removal of the Bible and prayer from schools, Christians did nothing! 1973, the unsupreme court made it legal to kill unborn human beings, now 60 million dead. Yesterday, marriage between a man and a woman created by God, mandated by God, instituted and commanded by God. America’s elected leaders in full rebellion against God, shaking their fist at God, His Word, and His commandments. Judgement will follow, see story of Noah and his family, Lot and his family-Sodom and Gomorrah! Pray we can escape what is coming!!!
What exactly is morally wrong? And based on polls, those that are against the same sex relations are the minority. Last I heard 60% of the country said it didn’t bother them.
Just because it’s the law doesn’t make it Morally right.
Very sad day for our country. This world caters to the minority. Them bums should be thrown out of the supreme court. Its ok, the lord will deal with the situation. Remember He has before.
Wake up America! Religious liberty protects the other liberties. 5 unelected activists have effectively outlawed Christianity. Our country’s 1984-like media have already been eroding freedom of speech. If we the people do nothing, the USA will be a very different and very bad place in the near future. Our children and grandchildren will live in tyranny. Just a little over 40 years have passed since the legalization of porn and abortion. That’s how long it has taken for the liberals to destroy marriage through pervasive propaganda.
“By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.”
—-Adolf Hitler
Please read:
George Orwell’s 1984
Michael Brown’s A Queer Thing Happened to America
D. James Kennedy’s WHAT IF JESUS HAD NEVER BEEN BORN?
Fight, people! Now’s the time to stand up and fight back.
Do not surrender your liberties so easily!
Go to lifesitenews and sign the petition to pass a Constitutional amendment.