06.26.2015 09:30 AM

Equality!

Justice Kennedy’s closing paragraph this morning. Read. 

  

22 Comments

  1. W the K - No, not Warren says:

    Simply, beautifully, and powerfully written.

    And Scalia’s dissent, which must be read to be believed, is one of the reasons I march in Pride.

  2. cynical says:

    Law as literature.
    Momentous day in the US, I think.

  3. Peter says:

    Put that to music and add a chorus for the other eight Supremes and you’d have a Grammy winner. I’m glad you are moved, Warren, but that ain’t law.

    • W the K - No, not Warren says:

      But it does read like a concluding statement in an opinion. Which is what justices do.

      • Peter says:

        Amusingly, it reads more like the homily a priest or minister would deliver at a wedding. I find this culturally fascinating. Never before have so many young heteros been ambivalent about marriage, which has come to have a “settling down” connotation after the passionate high romance period stabilizes. But when people talk about gay marriage, it often comes off like a John Donne love sonnet.

    • doconnor says:

      A dissent by the Notorious R.B.G.

  4. Bruce says:

    Aaaah….. love conquers all ……!

  5. Kevin T. says:

    And a bonus 2 for 1 in blown Scalia gaskets.

  6. Matt says:

    I always found the argument against gay marrying hilarious.

    It destroys the sanctity of marriage.

    Really?

    Yet these same people see no issue with marriages set up on reality tv like Who wants to marry a millionaire, The bachelor/bachelorette, married at first sight, ect.

    But I bet they’d have a stroke over Who wants to marry a gay millionaire.

  7. Meh says:

    Is this only for secular marriage or does this force religious institutions into same sex marriage? Because if it is isn’t this state interfering with church?

    • Priyesh says:

      This is to declare that it’s unconstitutional for a state to ban gay marriage. Big difference between “you can’t stop them from doing it” to “you are requiring that they have to do it”.

  8. Michael Teper says:

    I fully support the principle of marriage equality. That said, the majority’s reasoning is a disaster and Roberts’ and Scalia’s dissents are spot on. The majority’s reasoning goes like this:

    1. The petitioners are fine upstanding citizens, and one set is very patriotic for having served in the armed forces.
    2. Some of the petitioners are upset that the laws of the states where they reside don’t let them marry each other.
    3. Some of the petitioners are also upset that when they travel from state to state, some states recognize their marriage but others do not.
    4. It is right and just that the petitioners be permitted to marry each other, and for these marriages to be recognized as valid in every state.

    Therefore,

    5. The 37 state laws that define a marriage as being between an a man and a woman only therefore violate the Equal Protection clause and Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and are invalid.

    By the way, the reasoning of the District Court and the Sixth Circuit where these matters were heard is not even given the courtesy of a cursory review. It is altogether disregarded.

    Sorry, but that’s not “Equal Justice Under Law”. That’s not even law. That’s the fiat of five patrician rulers of the land, who are neither elected, accountable, nor representative of the people.

    Queries for Justices Kennedy, Sotomayor, Kagan, Ginsburg:

    1. Per the reasoning of Chief Justice Roberts, why should state laws be permitted to restrict marriage to two people? Aren’t people who sincerely desire to live in a plural marriage entitled to equal protection of the laws? The majority opinion keeps referring to marriage being between two people but never articulates a reason for doing so.
    2. If one state were to authorize plural marriage, would the other states be required to recognize such marriages?
    3. Why are state laws against marriages between close blood relatives constitutional – particularly in cases between people who are clearly incapable of having children?

    In other words, there’s a right way and a wrong way to secure the rights of gays and lesbians to equal marriage. This was the wrong way, and leaves me, a supporter of equal marriage, and a member of the New York State Bar, with a very uncomfortable feeling that separation of powers under the Constitution has been seriously compromised by five judges who are pretending to be a third house of Congress.

  9. Michael Teper says:

    In Canada, we did it the right way, by Parliament passing the Civil Marriage Act. We did not turn our Constitution upside down to achieve marriage equality.

  10. Ray says:

    Long overdue. Bravo.

    What a very different world than the one I grew up in.

  11. Jon Evan says:

    “To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation,”
    The Supremes are now Kings issuing decrees!

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