Same-sex marriage legalized nationwide: Supreme Court rules

Edith Windsor was the rare activist whose most important battle was fought not in her youth but in her 80s as a historic player in the fight for same-sex marriage. The lawsuit she famously won at age 83 challenged the federal marriage ban for same-sex couples known as the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996. That Supreme Court ruling invalidating DOMA opened the door for another lawsuit in 2015 (Obergefell v. Hodges) to federally recognize same-sex marriages across the country.

Windsor’s final act came to an end when she died Tuesday at the age of 88 at her home in Manhattan, the New York Times reported.

A same-sex couple in Rowan County, Kentucky, filmed themselves as they had their marriage license application denied after a Supreme Court ruling legalized same-sex marriages in all 50 states. And the county is offering a pretty tricky excuse for its denial: It won’t give a marriage license to anyone — straight or gay — to avoid marrying same-sex couples.

This is very similar to the tactic being used by some Alabama counties to avoid marrying same-sex (and opposite-sex) couples. The idea is that Rowan County and other counties doing this aren’t technically discriminating against same-sex couples’ marriage rights because they’re not allowing anyone, gay or straight, to marry.

A clerk in Hood County, Texas, over the past week tried to cite religious objections to deny a same-sex couple a marriage license following the Supreme Court ruling that brought marriage equality to all 50 states. But the clerk’s attempt to obstruct the Supreme Court decision went exactly as many legal experts expected: It failed horribly.

Jim Cato and Joe Stapleton, who’ve been together for 27 years, have been trying to get a marriage license from Hood County Clerk Katie Lang’s office since the Supreme Court ruling. But after facing repeated denials and a barrage of different excuses — including a claim that the couple would have to wait a few weeks for the proper forms — the couple on Monday filed a federal lawsuit, according to the Dallas Morning News’s Robert Wilonsky. Within a couple hours, the clerk’s office relented — and offered the couple a license, with the exact same form for same-sex couples the office had said it couldn’t use the previous week.

On Wednesday, the Episcopal Church officially sanctioned same-sex marriages for religious ceremonies — less than one week after the Supreme Court brought marriage equality to all 50 states.

The decision means eight major religious groups in the US now support same-sex marriages. Here’s a chart showing which are supportive, opposed, and unclear, from the Pew Research Center:

George Takei is not buying Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s suggestion that the government cannot take or bestow dignity on its citizens.

This morning, Takei published an op-ed entitled, “Denying our rights denies our dignity.” In it, the Star Trek actor took issue with the following line from Thomas’s dissent in last week’s historic same-sex marriage ruling: “Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them.”

Many people celebrated the Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states last week. But Beyoncé has now shown everyone up with a performance that has to be seen to be believed — even though she’s a little late to the party:

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart was happy to see the Confederate flag come down and Supreme Court uphold Obamacare and affirm same-sex marriage rights around the country — until he saw the conservative reaction.

“We all know the country’s been through a bit of a rough patch lately,” Stewart said. “But then all of a sudden out of nowhere, Confederate flags start coming down, Supreme Court decisions supporting health care, fair housing, marriage equality. It was a display stunning in its alacrity and completeness.”

On Friday, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages across the US. On Sunday, two major cities — New York City and San Francisco — held marches in celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month. The celebrations, as one would expect, were ecstatic, with celebrities and politicians joining in. Here are some of the images from New York City’s march.

Obviously, the rainbow flag is a huge deal at the LGBTQ Pride March — and it’s sometimes merged with other flags, like the US flag. (Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images)

In a landmark decision striking down states’ same-sex marriage bans and effectively bringing marriage equality to the entire country, the Supreme Court did something important: it took the time to explain – hopefully, once and for all – that marriage equality does not hurt male-female couples.

This topic doesn’t normally get much serious attention because, to many gay rights advocates, the idea that marriage equality threatens the institution of marriage just seems silly. It’s normally dismissed out of hand and met with sarcasm.

It’s been an amazing, news-packed week — with states moving to bring down their Confederate flags following criticisms that they’re racist symbols, the Supreme Court upholding Obamacare’s health insurance subsidies, and the court legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

The Southern Poverty Law Center posted a cartoon that perfectly summarizes the week. The cartoon appears to be an altered version of a strip by Bob Englehart that shows the Confederate flag coming down, but not the LGBTQ pride flag rising.

A few days before the Obamacare and same-sex marriage cases dropped, the New York Times published a fascinating data analysis showing that the Supreme Court was on track to have one of the most liberal terms in years.

But is the Court getting more liberal or are the cases getting more conservative?

The White House decided to celebrate the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling in style on Friday night. Here’s the view from the front of the building:

The White House wasn’t alone, either:

In a landmark decision, the US Supreme Court on June 26 struck down states’ same-sex marriage bans, effectively bringing marriage equality to the entire US.

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family,” Justice Anthony Kennedy, who joined the court’s liberals in the majority opinion, wrote. “[The challengers] ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

The Confederate battle flag is falling, and the rainbow flag is rising.

The cause of progressivism has rarely had such a lightning-fast and definitive wave of victories: Obamacare, same-sex marriage, fair housing, and the beginning of the end of the Confederate battle flag. The cultural upheaval has liberals ecstatic about gains secured by the Supreme Court in the first three matters. Though it seems like a lifetime ago now, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called for the removal of the Confederate flag from her state’s Capitol grounds on Monday, a response to the racially motivated mass murder of nine black people in a Charleston church.

The National Organization for Marriage, one of the nation’s leading organizations against same-sex marriage rights, is not happy with the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of marriage equality.

In a blog post about the ruling, NOM invoked Martin Luther King Jr. and Supreme Court cases involving slavery and abortion — all in a call for lawmakers and the public to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday:

After today’s historic victory for same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court, many LGBTQ activists and supporters are planning to move on to the next battles. But for organizations that were founded solely to promote marriage equality — back when that seemed like an uphill battle — the answer to “What’s next?” is: nothing. They’ve won.

Freedom to Marry has been one of the most important organizations in the fight for same-sex marriage. The organization was founded in 2003, but its founder, Evan Wolfson, has been advocating for the cause since he wrote his Harvard Law School thesis on the right to same-sex marriage in 1983. Wolfson told Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times that “part of what made him cry” when he read Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges “was how much so much of it resembled the paper I wrote 32 years ago.”

Some Alabama counties have found a bizarre trick to avoid the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling: They’re not issuing marriage licenses to anyone at all.

Pike County Probate Judge Wes Allen explained in a statement to DothanEagle.com’s Greg Phillips:

Just hours after the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, the Fulton County, Georgia, government center started holding a mass wedding. They’re live-streaming it on YouTube, and you can watch it here:

The county government has been planning for weeks in anticipation of the Supreme Court decision, the chairman said. Several different judges are marrying the couples — they’re now on the sixth.

Friday’s Supreme Court decision will go down in history as the day the Court affirmed a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

But the two most important sentences in the opinion were a reminder that this decision was really about much more than that. The opinion does not merely address the needs of one particular interest group. Rather, it is remedying a far bigger wrong: the unconstitutional exclusion of some Americans from one of the most important institutions in American life.

The Supreme Court just legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states. But what does that mean for religious conservatives who believe same-sex marriage is wrong? Will churches be forced to perform gay weddings? Will bakers be forced to bake gay wedding cakes?

The answer to the first question is no. But the answer to the second question still isn’t clear. And that’s because of the biggest hole in the Supreme Court’s decision.

On Friday, the US Supreme Court handed down an epochal ruling: Same-sex marriage would be legal in every American state. The US is joining an exclusive club. Only a small fraction of countries worldwide — 21 in total — have marriage equality nationwide, as this map (based on data from the Human Rights Campaign) demonstrates:

The US is now more progressive on the issue of same-sex marriage than is much of the developed world, including in Europe. Germany, Australia, Japan, Austria, Italy, and South Korea don’t have nationwide marriage equality. While the UK grants it in England, Scotland, and Wales, it does not in Northern Ireland and so for the purposes of this map showing only nationwide marriage equality does not count. Other countries, such as Mexico, have similar arrangements — as did the US until this week.

One of the oldest gay chorus groups in the US, they also performed the national anthem after the landmark DOMA decision in 2013:

Read how today’s Supreme Court decision will change marriage laws across the country:

The Supreme Court on Friday struck down states’ same-sex marriage bans, bringing marriage equality to all 50 states. The 5-4 ruling embraced the main argument of same-sex marriage advocates: Marriage is a fundamental right, and bans that prevent same-sex couples from marrying are discriminatory.

Here are the seven most remarkable quotes from the majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who joined the court’s four liberals to support marriage equality.

Reactions from Republican presidential hopefuls to the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide are pouring in. While everyone says they oppose the decision, there’s a great deal of variation in tone, with some denouncing the decision harshly and others seeming more accepting. Another emerging dividing line is whether candidates support a push for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision, which would define marriage as only between a man and a woman. Here are the reactions that have come in so far, from most outraged to least. We’ll add more as they come in.

In its 5-4 decision to require states to recognize same-sex marriageon 14th Amendment grounds, the Supreme Court’s majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, included a lot of powerful language about the dignity of Americans who want to marry someone of the same sex. Like this:

But Justice Clarence Thomas (who was predictably one of the four judges in the minority) seemed to think all of the “dignity” business was ridiculous. He explained this by insisting that there is nothing the government could ever do that would affect a person’s dignity.