State and Local Leaders React to the Supreme Court’s Marriage Equality Ruling
The crowd celebrates outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, Friday June 26, 2015, after the court declared that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the US. Jacquelyn Martin / AP Photo
Palm Springs’ mayor: “Looking around me, reading headlines, taking calls from around the nation ... Today, I just feel love.”
In another major decision in as many days, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Friday that states must license same-sex marriages. The Obergefell v. Hodges decision further requires that states recognize same-sex marriages performed out-of-state—upholding those couples’ 14th Amendment rights.
While not unexpected, the 13 states that previously had same-sex marriage bans—including Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, which petitioned the court to uphold theirs—must now implement the decision.
Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered the court’s majority opinion, which had a message for those states:
States have contributed to the fundamental character of marriage by placing it at the center of many facets of the legal and social order. There is no difference between same- and opposite-sex couples with respect to this principle, yet same-sex couples are denied the constellation of benefits that the States have linked to marriage and are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex couples would find intolerable. It is demeaning to lock same-sex couples out of a central institution of the Nation’s society, for they too may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage.
Plenty of state and local government officials had something to say about the ruling.
San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee, whose city’s Pride Celebration & Parade is conveniently this weekend, tweeted soon after the decision was handed down:
While in Southern California, openly gay Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet had this to say:
When I married my first couple here, then my second, my third, and was labeled "The marrying mayor", I had always viewed it as an act of pride and a bit of defiance against those who, from afar or down the street, refused to believe love is love.
Years later, with the same pride but without the defiance, it had become, happily, simply an act of honor for me to share something so important between two people who KNEW love is love. We just didn't need others approval.
Looking around me, reading headlines, taking calls from around the nation...Today, I just feel love.❤
The Seattle City Council’s first and only openly gay member, Tom Rasmussen, issued a statement Friday:
Today the Supreme Court ruling means that our Constitution stands for equal rights for all. This achievement is the result of decades of persistent, tenacious and courageous work by people throughout the country. Through steadfast advocacy to not accept anything less than full equality, this ruling moves LGBTQ rights forward.
While we succeeded on this issue, the fight for LGBTQ rights and equality continues. It is incumbent upon all of us to elect leaders who will protect and defend the rights that have been won and who will continue the effort to ensure full and fair treatment for all.
The quote, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice’"rings true today, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.
That doesn’t mean everyone was celebrating the Supreme Court ruling though.
Many are watching Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican presidential hopeful in the most conservative political environment of any governor that must implement the decision, now that his state’s ban on same-sex marriage has been found unconstitutional. He was quick to tweet:
Jindal further said the decision “tramples on states’ rights” while playing to public opinion and setting up an “assault” on religious liberty.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, who avoided the same-sex marriage debate when a federal judge overturned his state’s ban, didn’t hold back his displeasure with the Supreme Court on Friday:
Houston’s openly gay mayor, Annise Parker, shared a personal moment after the ruling:
And New York Mayor Bill de Blasio shared a poignant line from Kennedy’s opinion:
This post will be updated with additional comments and statements about Friday’s Supreme Court ruling.
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