Gay Rights - Movement, Marriage & Flag | HISTORY

Contents:

• GAY MARRIAGE CLARED LEGAL ACROSS THE US HISTORIC SUPREME URT LG
• GAY RIGHTS
• CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR
• FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG

GAY MARRIAGE CLARED LEGAL ACROSS THE US HISTORIC SUPREME URT LG

By one vote, the urt l that same-sex marriage nnot be banned the Uned Stat and that all same-sex marriag mt be regnized natnwi, fally grantg same-sex upl equal rights to heterosexual upl unr the 1971, jt two years after the Stonewall Rts that unofficially marked the begng of the stggle for gay rights and marriage equaly, the Mnota Supreme Court had found same-sex marriage bans nstutnal, a precent which the Supreme Court had never challenged.

As homosexualy gradually beme more accepted Amerin culture, the nservative backlash was strong enough to force Print Bill Clton to sign the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), prohibg the regnn of same-sex marriag at the feral level, to law 1996. Obergefell origated wh a gay uple, Jim Obergefell and John Arthur, who were married Maryland, where same-sex marriage was legal, but whose marriage was not regnized by Oh thori. Together, they volve a dozen upl who challenged same-sex marriage bans Oh, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennsee — the only stat wh bans on marriage between gay and lbian upl that had been staed by a feral appeals urt.

Before Friday's lg, gay marriage had already been ma legal 37 stat and the District of Columbia — by eher legislative or voter actn or by feral urts that overturned state' bans. As NPR's Na Totenberg reported when the Supreme Court heard the current se back April, nservative jtic had poted qutns for the attorneys: "Jtice Slia asked whether misters would be able to refe to marry two gay men.

GAY RIGHTS

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTPooja Mandagere, left, and Natalie Thompson outsi the Supreme Court on Friday after led favor of same-sex Mills/The New York TimSli 1 of 14 Pooja Mandagere, left, and Natalie Thompson outsi the Supreme Court on Friday after led favor of same-sex Mills/The New York TimJune 26, 2015WASHINGTON — In a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court led by a 5-to-4 vote on Friday that the Constutn guarante a right to same-sex marriage.

CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR

Gay rights advot, the chief jtice wrote, would have been better off wh a victory achieved through the polil procs, particularly “when the wds of change were heng at their backs. It immediately led to scen of jubilatn om ast to ast, as mpaigners, policians and everyday people – gay, straight and -between – hailed “a victory of love” lg, which Jtice Anthony Kennedy st the cidg vote, means the number of stat where gay marriage is legal will rise – albe after some stallg – om 37 to 50.

Photograph: Evan Golub/Demotix/CorbisThe crowd outsi the urt – ed, across the untry – epted joy after the lg was hand down, wh many longtime mpaigners cryg tears of joy and embracg their of “Love has won” reverberated among the hundreds gathered below the urt steps and across the street outsi the US Capol, as rabow flags tertwed wh the Amerin the crowd was California reprentative Mark Takano, an openly gay member of Congrs who scribed beg at the scene as both “profound and poted”. “The arc of history is que clear that the stggle for LGBT equaly is part of our civil rights, ” Takano sex marriage discrimatnJudd Proctor, a 65-year-old rint of Silver Sprg, Maryland, said he never thought he would live to see the day that gay marriage would be a nstutnal right.

FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG

Photograph: Eric Gay/APRandy Johnson, a platiff one of the ncurrent s brought om Kentucky before the urt wh his partner Pl Campn, said he still had goosebumps, hours after their 20-year-old son had texted them two words: “We won. Kathie DeNobriga, the mayor of Atlanta suburb Pe Lake who married her long-term partner out of state last year as one of the few openly gay policians the Amerin south, lled the urt lg “a victory of love opposn to fear”.

”Legal same-sex weddgs were takg place for the first time on Friday across Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Tennsee, even as the attorneys general Texas and Mississippi said marriag uld not take place attorney general Ken Paxton issued a long statement suggtg he would attempt to fight the legalisatn of gay marriage by assertg the “relig liberti” of clerks and officials.

He subsequently clarified that his office “is certaly not standg the way of the supreme urt’s cisn” gay upl waed at the state val rerds office New Orleans to get their marriage licens. ”The natn’s hight tribunal last weighed marriage equaly 2012, wh challeng to California’s effective ban on same-sex marriag, known as Proposn 8, and a key provisn of the feral Defense of Marriage Act (Doma) jtic then led favor of marriage equaly proponents, but ducked the qutn of whether gay marriage was a nstutnal right. It was a cisn s the makg, gog back to a 1970s Supreme Court se, legal battl Hawaii the 1990s that almost allowed same-sex marriage the state, and a urt cisn Massachetts that ma that state the first to let gay and lbian upl marry.

So the first step advancg trans rights the US is tg the public on the basics and exposg Amerins to trans people — siar to how TV shows and g-out mpaigns helped gay, lbian, and bisexual Amerins show other people that they are by and large jt like anyone else and should be allowed to marry. As Rob Wilson, a law profsor at the Universy of Illois who helped wre Utah's nondiscrimatn law, told me, relig nflicts are the major obstacle to passg LGBTQ protectns more stat: "The bigger problem is that if you nvce people that givg gay folks rights is gog to somehow encroach on relign, 's gog to be harr to change that legislative map the US.