Kennedy: The gay marriage jtice | The Hill

anthony kennedy gay marriage

In a historic cisn for the gay right's movement, the Supreme Court led on Friday that the U.S. Constutn grants same-sex upl the right to marry. Jtice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the majory opn, said that gay and lbian upl have a fundamental right to marry.

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KENNEDY: THE GAY MARRIAGE JTICE

Although nomated by Ronald Reagan, he has thored every major cisn affirmg the rights of gays and lbians sce 1996. * anthony kennedy gay marriage *

The newt gay rights in wears a drab black robe and got his job om Ronald Reagan. Perhaps no Amerin polil figure has been more nsequential gay and lbian Amerins’ fight for equaly than Supreme Court Jtice Anthony M. Kennedy, the thor of Friday’s majory lg that sentially legalized gay marriage around the Uned Stat.

“It’s impossible to overstate his importance” to the gay rights movement, said Cala Taylor, unsel and director of Lambda Legal’s marriage project. Kennedy’s first stand for gay rights me 1996, when he thored a 6-3 cisn emg unnstutnal a Colorado referendum that allowed discrimatn agast lbians, gays and bisexuals. It was a signifint precursor to Friday’s opn, bee ced the 14 th Amendment’s equal-protectn clse as a source of gay rights.

The gay marriage lg, known as Obergefell v. Taylor said Kennedy’s history on gay rights aligns wh the untry’s broar evolutn on those issu. But Taylor add that Kennedy’s “rpectful acknowledgment” of gay peopl’ humany “has talyzed the movement.

‘IT IS SO ORRED.’ SUPREME COURT JTIC ON GAY MARRIAGE CISN

* anthony kennedy gay marriage *

Anthony Kennedy on Friday enshred his legacy as the gay marriage jtice. Kennedy was the thor of both opns, both s makg the se for gay rights sweepg, emotnal terms.

“Jtice Kennedy” beme a top trendg topic on Twter right after the lg was announced, wh gay rights supporters across the untry celebratg his role the lg. The plds om supporters of gay marriage is an unlikely twist the judicial reer of Kennedy, an appotee of former Print Reagan who has long played the role of iologil wild rd on the urt.

The road to Friday’s lg legalizg gay marriage was paved by the DOMA cisn, which found that the feral ernment uld not refe to regnize gay marriag allowed by the stat. In the end, he not only voted wh the urt’s liberal wg to abolish DOMA but wrote an opn that ma the se for gay rights moral terms. Jtice Anton Slia warned Kennedy’s lg was so broad spe that gay marriage bans would fall across the untry.

IS ANTHONY KENNEDY ‘THE FIRST GAY JTICE’?

When Judge Vghn Walker cid Thursday to rtart gay marriage California as of Aug. 18, he turned what had been a tactil headache for... * anthony kennedy gay marriage *

That warng proved prophetic, as the DOMA cisn set off a cha reactn of lower urt lgs that abolished gay marriage bans across the untry.

It was those lgs that led to Friday’s landmark cisn, wh stat appealg to the hight urt the land for permissn to rtore the gay marriage bans put place by voters.

ANTHONY KENNEDY AND THE FOUR SUPREME COURT LGS THAT CHANGED GAY LIFE AMERI

The fact that stat have allowed gays and lbians to adopt children, eher as dividuals or as upl, he said, is powerful proof that gays and lbians n create stable fai. If and when those s arise, uld aga fall to Kennedy to ci how far the natn should go fense of gay rights. In a historic cisn for the gay right’s movement, the Supreme Court led on Friday that the U.

Kennedy, who wrote the majory opn, said that gay and lbian upl have a fundamental right to marry. Same-sex marriage supporters celebrate after the Supreme Court’s landmark lg on gay marriage.

Gay rights supporters celebrate Friday after the U. There was ltle doubt that later that morng, this quietly powerful jtice would be havg a major say the legal, polil, and social path of gay rights movg forward. M., Kennedy kicked off the public ssn wh his eloquent majory lg strikg down a key part of a feral law that blocks a range of benefs for legally married gay and lbian upl.

WHAT WILL ANTHONY KENNEDY DO ON GAY MARRIAGE?

What’s next for gay rights movement? “If Bill Clton was ‘the first black print, ’ Anthony Kennedy has now firmly secured his place history as ‘the first gay jtice, ’” said Michael Dorf, a law profsor at Cornell Universy and a former Kennedy law clerk.

THE ONE SUPREME COURT PARAGRAPH ON LOVE THAT GAY MARRIAGE SUPPORTERS WILL NEVER FET

“Jtice Kennedy mak clear that he not only accepts, but wel the task of wrg majtic opns affirmg the digny of gay persons and upl. He has wrten majory cisns upholdg rights to homosexual upl, unrage killers, and foreign fighters held by the U. What about , ask other gay upl.

“Jtice Kennedy lerally transformed the liv of lbian, gay and bisexual people Ameri, ” said Jam Esseks, director of the Amerin Civil Liberti Unn’s LGBT and HIV Project. ”The 81-year-old jtice, who has served on the urt sce 1988, was the thor of the majory opn on four key s that transformed gay rights first was Romer v.

Evans 1996, when the jtic stck down a Colorado law that prevented gay people om beg regnized as a protected class. Texas, the 2003 cisn that ma sex between gay upl legal across the untry, even those 13 stat that still had sodomy laws on the books. “When we thk about the issu at a time when we have marriage equaly may be hard to believe that stat crimalized the sexual timacy of gay people to the 21st century, ” said Suzanne B.

A SECRET AL BETWEEN JTIC JOHN ROBERTS AND ANTHONY KENNEDY ON GAY RIGHTS AND WHAT MEANS TODAY

“Sodomy laws ed enormo damage to the liv of gay people bee they were ed employment, fay law and other settgs to jtify discrimatn.

”The cisns, though lser known than the marriage cisn, are no ls signifint, gay rights advot say.

FROM GAY MARRIAGE TO VOTG LAW, KENNEDY IS THE KEY

The AP terviewed a dozen people who knew Schaber, who died 1997, and reported that he was wily believed to be story of Kennedy’s “closeted gay mentor” was published as the untry was awag a cisn Obergefell v.

Before he beme a Supreme Court jtice, he led favor of the Navy beg allowed to discharge gays.

In 2000, he sid wh the nservative jtic who held that the Boy Suts of Ameri uld ban gay adults om beg the very first sentence of Kennedy’s cisn quelled Wu’s fears: “The Constutn promis liberty to all wh s reach, a liberty that clus certa specific rights that allow persons, wh a lawful realm, to fe and exprs their inty. Evans, 49 percent of Amerins said homosexualy should be disuraged by society, acrdg to the Pew Rearch Center. When Judge Vghn Walker cid Thursday to rtart gay marriage California as of Aug.

SOME PRACTIL THOUGHTS ON GAY MARRIAGE AFTER ANTHONY KENNEDY'S RETIREMENT

Supreme Court wh Kennedy will go for California, which means all 31 stat will go down flam” (prumably the stat that have voted to reject gay marriage).

” And perhaps the gay-marriage opponent most certa of Kennedy’s vote is his lleague, Anton Slia. Texas, the 2003 se strikg down the state sodomy law, Slia wrote that Kennedy’s opn “dismantl the stcture of nstutnal law that has permted a distctn to be ma between heterosexual and homosexual unns, sofar as formal regnn marriage is ncerned. And yet the left is almost equally certa that Kennedy will vote not to create a nstutnal right to gay marriage.

Stt Lemix wrote at the Amerin Prospect that Kennedy’s strong gay rights vot both Lawrence v. For a b of eper sight, I turned to a 2004 paper lled “The Gay Rights Jurispnce of Anthony Kennedy, ” by Artem Ward, a profsor of polil science at Northern Illois Universy.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* ANTHONY KENNEDY GAY MARRIAGE

Anthony Kennedy and the four Supreme Court lgs that changed gay life Ameri - The Washgton Post .

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