Supreme Court Ruling Makes Same-Sex Marriage a Right Nationwide
WASHINGTON — In a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.
“No
longer may this liberty be denied,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote
for the majority in the historic decision. “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.”
Marriage
is a “keystone of our social order,” Justice Kennedy said, adding that
the plaintiffs in the case were seeking “equal dignity in the eyes of
the law.”
The decision, which was the culmination of decades of litigation and activism, set off jubilation and tearful embraces across the country, the first same-sex marriages
in several states, and resistance — or at least stalling — in others.
It came against the backdrop of fast-moving changes in public opinion,
with polls indicating that most Americans now approve of the unions.
The
court’s four more liberal justices joined Justice Kennedy’s majority
opinion. Each member of the court’s conservative wing filed a separate
dissent, in tones ranging from resigned dismay to bitter scorn.
In dissent, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the Constitution had nothing to say on the subject of same-sex marriage.
“If
you are among the many Americans — of whatever sexual orientation — who
favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s
decision,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “Celebrate the achievement of a
desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of
commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But
do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”
In
a second dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia mocked the soaring language of
Justice Kennedy, who has become the nation’s most important judicial
champion of gay rights.
“The
opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is
egotistic,” Justice Scalia wrote of his colleague’s work. “Of course the
opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent.”
Many See a Victory for Children, Too
Thousands, including parents, babies and
dogs, flocked to the Supreme Court after its ruling on same-sex
marriage. Supporters spoke about how they thought the ruling helped
maintain and support families.
By Channon Hodge on Publish Date June 26, 2015.
Photo by Albert Cesare/The Montgomery Advertiser, via Associated Press.
As
Justice Kennedy finished announcing his opinion from the bench on
Friday, several lawyers seated in the bar section of the court’s gallery
wiped away tears, while others grinned and exchanged embraces.
Justice
John Paul Stevens, who retired in 2010, was on hand for the decision,
and many of the justices’ clerks took seats in the chamber, which was
nearly full as the ruling was announced. The decision made same-sex
marriage a reality in the 13 states that had continued to ban it.
Outside the Supreme Court,
the police allowed hundreds of people waving rainbow flags and holding
signs to advance onto the court plaza as those present for the decision
streamed down the steps. “Love has won,” the crowd chanted as courtroom
witnesses threw up their arms in victory.
In remarks in the Rose Garden, President Obama welcomed the decision, saying it “affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts.”
“Today,” he said, “we can say, in no uncertain terms, that we have made our union a little more perfect.”
Justice
Kennedy was the author of all three of the Supreme Court’s previous gay
rights landmarks. The latest decision came exactly two years after his
majority opinion in United States v. Windsor,
which struck down a federal law denying benefits to married same-sex
couples, and exactly 12 years after his majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down laws making gay sex a crime.
In all of those decisions, Justice Kennedy embraced a vision of a living Constitution, one that evolves with societal changes.
“The
nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times,”
he wrote on Friday. “The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill
of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the
extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to
future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to
enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”
This
drew a withering response from Justice Scalia, a proponent of reading
the Constitution according to the original understanding of those who
adopted it. His dissent was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.
“They
have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment,” Justice Scalia wrote of
the majority, “a ‘fundamental right’ overlooked by every person alive at
the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since.”
“These
justices know,” Justice Scalia said, “that limiting marriage to one man
and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as
old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until
15 years ago, cannot possibly be supported by anything other than
ignorance or bigotry.”
Justice
Kennedy rooted the ruling in a fundamental right to marriage. Of
special importance to couples, he said, is raising children.
“Without
the recognition, stability and predictability marriage offers,” he
wrote, “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.”
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the majority opinion.
In dissent, Chief Justice Roberts said the majority opinion was “an act of will, not legal judgment.”
The court decided in
Obergefell v. Hodges and three related cases that the Constitution
guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. Full analysis »
5-4
MAJORITY
DISSENT
Sotomayor
Kagan
Ginsburg
Breyer
Kennedy
Roberts
Scalia
Alito
Thomas
• Same-sex couples can marry in
three dozen states, but federal appeals courts have been divided over
whether states must allow same-sex couples to marry and recognize such
marriages performed elsewhere.
“The
court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and
orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the
basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the
Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs,” he wrote. “Just who do
we think we are?”
The
majority and dissenting opinions took differing views about whether the
decision would harm religious liberty. Justice Kennedy said the First
Amendment “ensures that religious organizations and persons are given
proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so
fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.” He said both sides
should engage in “an open and searching debate.”
Chief
Justice Roberts responded that “people of faith can take no comfort in
the treatment they receive from the majority today.”
Justice
Samuel A. Alito Jr., in his dissent, saw a broader threat from the
majority opinion. “It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling
to assent to the new orthodoxy,” Justice Alito wrote. “In the course of
its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws
that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. The
implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are
determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.”
Gay
rights advocates had constructed a careful litigation and public
relations strategy to build momentum and bring the issue to the Supreme
Court when it appeared ready to rule in their favor. As in earlier civil
rights cases, the court had responded cautiously and methodically,
laying judicial groundwork for a transformative decision.
It
waited for scores of lower courts to strike down bans on same-sex
marriages before addressing the issue, and Justice Kennedy took the
unusual step of listing those decisions in an appendix to his opinion.
Chief
Justice Roberts said that only 11 states and the District of Columbia
had embraced the right to same-sex marriage democratically, at voting
booths and in legislatures. The rest of the 37 states that allow such
unions did so because of court rulings. Gay rights advocates, the chief
justice wrote, would have been better off with a victory achieved
through the political process, particularly “when the winds of change
were freshening at their backs.”
In
his own dissent, Justice Scalia took a similar view, saying that the
majority’s assertiveness represented a “threat to American democracy.”
But
Justice Kennedy rejected that idea. “It is of no moment whether
advocates of same-sex marriage now enjoy or lack momentum in the
democratic process,” he wrote. “The issue before the court here is the
legal question whether the Constitution protects the right of same-sex
couples to marry.”
Later in the opinion, Justice Kennedy answered the question. “The Constitution,” he wrote, “grants them that right.”
Correction: June 26, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the time period since Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down laws making gay sex a crime. It is 12 years, not 10.
An earlier version of this article misstated the time period since Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down laws making gay sex a crime. It is 12 years, not 10.
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