Supreme Court Strikes Down Same-Sex Marriage Ban | NBC Nightly News

now to that historic decision of the Supreme Court that legalizes

same

-sex

marriage

throughout the country and it is profound that the five to four vote reflects in many ways the enormous social change of the last 20 years; The president says that today there are days like this in which that slow and constant effort is rewarded with Justice that arrives like a lightning bolt, we will have all the celebrations throughout the country and we will also listen to those who were disappointed by the decision, but first Let's go to

court

and our Justice correspondent, Pete Williams, Pete set the stage for us.

Lester Good. Tonight is the largest gay rights ruling in history and is the culmination of decades of legal battles. It comes from a

supreme

court

that just 30 years ago said that homosexuals could be punished as criminals. A huge cheer and then chanting as the decision reaches the crowd at the front. The landmark ruling overturned

same

-sex

marriage

bans that were still in effect in 14 states, all of them in the South and Midwest, and were already legal in all the others. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the 5-4 ruling, which was joined by the liberal courts as a matter of law. -Sex couples getting married is part of the freedom promised by the Constitution, Kennedy said, which grants them equal dignity in the eyes of the law.

After the decision was announced, the crowd seemed to grow, people wanting to celebrate and be closer to the Supreme Court couples who fought the gangs in Kentucky were ecstatic. It has been a long road for us in our 3 years. We know that people have been fighting this fight for decades. Pam York Smith and her partner fought the Ohio gang for us. This started as a dream to add my name. to our son's birth certificate James Ober gell wanted to be declared a Survivor on his spouse's death certificate. I know in my heart that John is with me today.

Each of the four conservatives on the Supreme Court filed a dissent. Chief Justice John Robert said the couples presented strong arguments. He has his roots in social policy and justice, but he said that decision should rest with the people, not the judges. Justice Anthon and Scalia called the Court's reasoning a threat to American democracy if he had written the ruling, he said: I would bury my head in a bag and we hope that this decision today is not used as an excuse to ostracize, demonize or punish people for holding views contrary to what five of the nine judges said today.

Massachusetts in 2003 was the first state to allow marriage for gay couples, others slowly followed. Then an avalanche of court rulings over the last two years led to 70% of the country's population saying that people don't have to hold their breath when crossing state lines and where they are going to lose their marriage and their protections when crossing borders. state. Does today's ruling resolve the issue of same-sex marriage? At the national level it could be reversed, but only through a constitutional amendment or a future Supreme Court changing its mind, and neither of those things seem likely. Lester Pete will do it.

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