It's an important date not jt for gay Amerins, but for all
Contents:
- WHY JUNE 26 IS ALREADY A LANDMARK DAY FOR GAYS AND THE SUPREME COURT
- SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?
- GAY MARRIAGE
WHY JUNE 26 IS ALREADY A LANDMARK DAY FOR GAYS AND THE SUPREME COURT
* 6/26 gay marriage *
On Friday the Supreme Court led that gay Amerins had the right to marry every state the untry. Bee June 26 isn’t jt an important date for gay Amerins– ’s a date that symboliz how rapidly change n happen Ameri, how quickly our attus n evolve, and how, when ed rrectly, our system is one that propels all towards a more equal state.
Only 11 years ago, 2004, Massachetts beme the first state to allow gay upl to marry.
In a ltle over a , gay marriage has gone om a provotive pipe dream to a legal and nstutnal right. June 26 isn’t jt a symbol of marriage equaly or gay rights– ’s a day that memorat a llective change of md, the Amerin abily to choose eedom and equaly.
SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?
As the Supreme Court nears a cisn on same-sex marriag, observers of Court history have noted that June 26 already has special signifince for cisns that have favored gay rights landmark s. * 6/26 gay marriage *
As the Supreme Court nears a cisn on same-sex marriag, observers of Court history have noted that June 26 already has special signifince for cisns that have favored gay rights landmark s. “[W]hat jtifitn uld there possibly be for nyg the benefs of marriage to homosexual upl exercisg ‘the liberty protected by the Constutn’?
GAY MARRIAGE
The hight-profile Supreme Court w for gay and lbian rights, a cisn wrten for history, stopped short of what advot really wanted. Where do that leave the movement? * 6/26 gay marriage *
Surely not the enuragement of procreatn, sce the sterile and the elrly are allowed to marry, ” Slia wrote back 2003, “What jtifitn uld there possibly be for nyg the benefs of marriage to homosexual upl?
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.
Gay marriage was the predomant "culture war" issue of Gee W. 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. When Print Barack Obama threw his admistratn’s support behd a challenge to Proposn 8, the gay-marriage ban enacted by California voters 2008, his Jtice Department troduced what amounted to a bizarre promise.
Proponents ntend that gay marriage bans are discrimatory and unnstutnal, opponents ague that marriage is primarily for procreatn. * 6/26 gay marriage *
Proposed that the Supreme Court le that stat like California, which had extend gay men’s and lbians’ “marriage le” alternativ like domtic partnership or civil unn, were vlatn of the nstutnal prohibn agast “separate but equal”—but was fe to offer no regnn at all. The proposal was signed to ensure that no state would have to beg validatg gay or lbian fai unr the force of a urt orr. But a simultaneo lg by the urt that the Defense of Marriage Act was unnstutnal dramatilly changed gay-rights ligators’ view of what was possible.
The road to full marriage equaly for same-sex upl the Uned Stat was paved wh setbacks and victori. The landmark 2015 Supreme Court se Obergefell v. Hodg ma gay marriage legal throughout the untry. * 6/26 gay marriage *
Acrdg to the urt’s applitn of the equal-protectn clse, such a termatn would subject not only the marriage bans but a whole range of feral, state and lol laws that disadvantaged gay men and lbians (and possibly transgenred people, as well) to a higher level of judicial scty. Yet Jtice Anthony Kennedy, who had prevly wrten three watershed opns that had helped to tablish the full cizenship of gay men and lbians, had nsistently cled to see the s on those terms.
He knew he was wrg for history, and that passage immediately adorned merchandise—to this day Etsy remas filled wh posters and noterds featurg Kennedy’s words—and is now often read at weddg ceremoni for both straight and gay upl. To some extent, this was a reflectn of the broar succs that gay-marriage mpaigners had had the polil sphere. While a feral urt ced Obergefell 2016 as a basis to strike down Mississippi’s ban on adoptn by gay upl, s impact has been barely felt areas beyond fay law.
Ined, the years sce, gay-rights advot and ligators have been fightg many of the same issu they nonted years, even s, earlier.