FREEDOM WINS!!! U.S. Supreme Court makes marriage equality law of the land nationwide

This morn­ing, in a his­toric and ground­break­ing deci­sion, the Unit­ed States Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that states may not pro­hib­it cou­ples from mar­ry­ing on the basis of their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. The court’s major­i­ty opin­ion in Oberge­fell v. Hodges means that mar­riage equal­i­ty is sud­den­ly and final­ly the law of the land in all fifty states of the Unit­ed States. This is unques­tion­ably one of the great­est civ­il rights advances of all time, and it cer­tain­ly seems fit­ting that it comes on the eve of Seat­tle Pride 2015.

A great many pro­gres­sive activists have worked for this day for many years, and we hon­or their work and con­tri­bu­tions. They made the difference.

Eleven years ago, dur­ing the mid­dle of the Bush error, there was just one state where LGBT cou­ples could mar­ry… Mass­a­chu­setts. A lot has changed in the decade since. Pro­gres­sives have man­aged to over­come a reac­tionary, right wing back­lash to the idea of the free­dom to mar­ry in the mid-2000s, at a speed that many did not think was pos­si­ble. Both in the courts and in the court of pub­lic opin­ion, free­dom has been on a roll… and it’s left the­o­log­i­cal con­ser­v­a­tives in utter shock.

The out­come of Oberge­fell v. Hodges is the cul­mi­na­tion of a long strug­gle to move this coun­try to the point where the arc of the moral uni­verse takes anoth­er impor­tant bend towards justice.

Five jus­tices — Ruth Bad­er Gins­burg, Sonia Sotomay­or, Ele­na Kagan, Stephen Brey­er, and Antho­ny Kennedy — have held that the Four­teenth Amend­ment pro­hibits states from dis­al­low­ing LGBT cou­ples to mar­ry or refus­ing to rec­og­nize mar­riages between LGBT cou­ples per­formed in oth­er states.

“The his­to­ry of mar­riage is one of both con­ti­nu­ity and change,” the jus­tices declared, demon­strat­ing a strong grasp of the pro­gres­sive idea of dynam­ic free­dom in the intro­duc­to­ry por­tion of their major­i­ty opin­ion, authored by Jus­tice Kennedy.

“Changes, such as the decline of arranged mar­riages and the aban­don­ment of the law of cover­ture, have worked deep trans­for­ma­tions in the struc­ture of mar­riage, affect­ing aspects of mar­riage once viewed as essential.”

“These new insights have strength­ened, not weak­ened, the insti­tu­tion. Changed under­stand­ings of mar­riage are char­ac­ter­is­tic of a Nation where new dimen­sions of free­dom become appar­ent to new generations.”

Lat­er on, they noted:

States have con­tributed to the fun­da­men­tal char­ac­ter of mar­riage by plac­ing it at the cen­ter of many facets of the legal and social order.

There is no dif­fer­ence between same- and oppo­site-sex cou­ples with respect to this prin­ci­ple, yet same-sex cou­ples are denied the con­stel­la­tion of ben­e­fits that the States have linked to mar­riage and are con­signed to an insta­bil­i­ty many oppo­site-sex cou­ples would find intol­er­a­ble. It is demean­ing to lock same-sex cou­ples out of a cen­tral insti­tu­tion of the Nation’s soci­ety, for they too may aspire to the tran­scen­dent pur­pos­es of marriage.

The lim­i­ta­tion of mar­riage to oppo­site-sex cou­ples may long have seemed nat­ur­al and just, but its in con­sis­ten­cy with the cen­tral mean­ing of the fun­da­men­tal right to mar­ry is now manifest.

The full major­i­ty opin­ion, plus the con­ser­v­a­tive minor­i­ty’s dis­sent­ing opin­ion, is avail­able for your read­ing enjoy­ment on the Supreme Court’s web­site.

SCO­TUS­Blog has more legal analy­sis here.

In a state­ment in the Rose Gar­den, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma hailed the deci­sion and said it would come as a great relief to many LGBT cou­ples who have wait­ed for mar­riage equal­i­ty to become the law of the land in their state.

“This deci­sion will end the patch­work sys­tem we cur­rent­ly have,” Pres­i­dent Oba­ma not­ed. “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.”

“This deci­sion affirms what mil­lions of Amer­i­cans already believe in their hearts:  When all Amer­i­cans are treat­ed as equal we are all more free. ”

Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden agreed.

“We couldn’t be proud­er,” he said, speak­ing for both him­self and Sec­ond Lady Jill Biden. “Over the years—in their homes, on our staff, on the front­lines of war, and in hous­es of worship—Jill and I have befriend­ed count­less gay, les­bian, bisex­u­al, and trans­gen­der Amer­i­cans who share a love for their part­ners con­strained only by social stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry laws. But today, their love is set free with the right to mar­ry and the recog­ni­tion of that mar­riage through­out the country.”

“This day is for them, their chil­dren, and their fam­i­lies. And it is for gen­er­a­tions of advocates—gay, les­bian, trans­gen­der, straight—who for decades fought a lone­ly and dan­ger­ous bat­tle. Peo­ple of absolute courage who risked their lives, jobs, and rep­u­ta­tions to come for­ward in pur­suit of the basic right rec­og­nized today, but at a time when nei­ther the coun­try nor the courts would pro­tect or defend them.”

“And this day is for his­to­ry to remem­ber as one where, as a nation, our laws final­ly rec­og­nize that all peo­ple should be treat­ed with respect and dignity—and that all mar­riages, at their root, are defined by uncon­di­tion­al love.”

Advo­cates praised the deci­sion and called on states to com­ply ful­ly and swift­ly with the Supreme Court’s deci­sion, which is bind­ing and can­not be appealed.

“Free­dom to Mar­ry calls on state offi­cials to swift­ly and faith­ful­ly imple­ment the Constitution’s com­mand in the remain­ing thir­teen states with mar­riage dis­crim­i­na­tion, so that all Amer­i­cans can mar­ry the per­son they love and build and pro­tect their fam­i­lies, with­out delay, through­out the land,” said Free­dom to Mar­ry Pres­i­dent Evan Wolf­son in a statement.

“The move­ment will con­tin­ue to har­ness the pow­er of the mar­riage con­ver­sa­tion and win in the work ahead – includ­ing pas­sage of a fed­er­al civ­il rights bill, secur­ing state and local pro­tec­tions against dis­crim­i­na­tion, tend­ing to the needs of our youth and our seniors, and ensur­ing that the lived expe­ri­ence of gay, les­bian, bisex­u­al, and trans­gen­der peo­ple is ful­fill­ing, good, inclu­sive, and equal through­out the land.”

“But the work of this Free­dom to Mar­ry cam­paign is now accom­plished. Over the next sev­er­al months, we will col­lab­o­rate with key move­ment col­leagues to smart­ly and strate­gi­cal­ly wind down its work and doc­u­ment lessons learned, and then close its doors, hav­ing achieved its goal of win­ning mar­riage nation­wide and help­ing lov­ing and com­mit­ted cou­ples cross the thresh­old to mar­riage and full inclu­sion in soci­ety, with equal jus­tice under law.”

We at NPI con­grat­u­late the plain­tiffs who brought this land­mark legal chal­lenge. Like their coun­ter­parts in Wind­sor, Per­ry, Lawrence, and oth­er his­toric cas­es, their deter­mi­na­tion and per­se­ver­ance has paved the way for anoth­er major civ­il rights vic­to­ry in this coun­try. It is cru­cial that pro­gres­sives always be work­ing to expand free­dom — for free­dom does­n’t stand still. If we do not work hard to expand free­dom, rad­i­cal con­ser­v­a­tives will suc­ceed in con­tract­ing it.

Let the cel­e­bra­tion of nation­wide mar­riage equal­i­ty across the whole Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca begin — it’s Pride month!