Supreme Court rules same sex marriage is legal in America

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After years of grass roots organizing, legal battles, marches and protests same sex marriage has been declared the law of the land. Citing both due process, and equal rights the Supreme Court voted five to four on June 26. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority “No longer may this liberty be denied. No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.” Calling marriage a “keystone of our social order,” he said the plaintiffs in the case were seeking “equal dignity in the eyes of the law.”

In the decision Kennedy noted that the institution of marriage and what defines marriage changed with the political climate. He referred to centuries past when women were considered property of their husbands upon marriage, and all the property the woman owned then became her husband’s property as well. As the political climate changed, so too did the role of wife, first no longer property, then, as women obtained rights, the wife became a partner. More recently laws were enacted to allow different races to marry. It is along this changing timeline, that the court now sees same sex marriage to be the right of all Americans.

In dissent Chief Justice Roberts said the Constitution had nothing to do with the ruling, the majority opinion was “an act of will, not legal judgment. The court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs,” he wrote. “Just who do we think we are?”

Lawyer Ilyssa Fuchs, a lesbian, formerly of Island Park said “It’s been a long time coming and a hard fought fight but I am extremely pleased with the legal outcome and the fact that the Supreme Court finally recognized what most people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender [LGBT] community have always known, that marriage is a fundamental Constitutional right and that bans against same sex marriage are discriminatory and cannot stand in a society that values freedom and equality. As Justice Robert Jackson once said, ‘fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.’ I’m glad the court finally recognized it.”