Justice Kennedy’s beautiful closing paragraph in same-sex ruling is pure poetry moving many to tears: '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 once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope 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. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered.' BREAKING: U.S. Supreme Court rules in favour of same-sex marriage. Constitution guarantees marriage equality to gay and lesbian couples, court says The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the U.S. Constitution gives gay people the right to marry in all 50 states. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires states to license marriages between people of the same sex and to recognize marriages that were lawfully performed outside of state. Related: President Barack Obama called the plaintiff in Obergefell v. Hodges Jim Obergefell to personally thank him for bringing the lawsuit that led the Supreme Court to rule that gay marriage bans were unconstitutional. WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Friday ruled same-sex partners have a constitutional right to marry, sweeping away state bans on gay unions and extending marriage equality nationwide. The 5-4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges et. al. struck down restrictions on same-sex marriage in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee that a Cincinnati-based federal appeals court upheld last year. It also validated a series of lower court opinions that expanded the institution across most of the nation since 2012, following an earlier Supreme Court holding requiring federal recognition of gay and lesbian marriages in states that had chosen to authorize the practice. The opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy caps a rapid shift in legal and societal acceptance of same-sex marriage over the past decade. It also marks a revolution in American society, one that in the course of a generation saw gay rights move to the front line from the fringes of a national debate over the meaning of equality. Justice Kennedy is joined in the majority by the court’s four liberal justices— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Friday’s ruling marks the fourth major gay rights ruling by Justice Kennedy. As at times in the past, he used sweeping language in describing the outcome. “As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.” Massachusetts in 2003 became the first U.S. state to recognize gay marriages, a development that led to some states recognizing the practice and dozens of states amending state constitutions to forbid it. Those constitutional bans began to fall after the 2013 U.S. v. Windsor ruling, which invalidated provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The opinion invoked two strands of reasoning: one indicating Congress should honor states’ definitions of marriage; another suggesting the Defense of Marriage Act served no purpose other than to stigmatize and demean same-sex relationships. Lower courts overwhelmingly read the Windsor opinion as requiring them to strike down as unconstitutional state marriage restrictions, ending bans in more than a dozen states. Ahead of the ruling, same-sex marriage was legal in 36 states and the District of Columbia. That includes Alabama, where a federal judge has ruled the state must recognize same-sex marriages but put the decision on hold pending the high court’s ruling on the matter. The appeal before the Supreme Court was brought by 16 gay couples challenging marriage bans in the four states. The couples argued the U.S. Constitution entitles them to unions on the same terms as heterosexuals, and that state restrictions hurt them financially and demean their dignity by denying their unions legal recognition. The four states had argued the courts should defer to the political process, leaving the decision of whether to recognize same-sex unions to the legislatures of each state. Christopher Michele farkıyla sunulmuştur.Lütfen takip etme

• published: 14 Jul 2015
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