This morning, the United States Supreme Court issued their decision in the case of OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL., holding that “The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.” This decision makes gay marriage legal in all 50 states, overturning individual State bans on same-sex unions.
The decision was a close 5-4, with Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito dissenting. Justice Kennedy read the court’s decision on the anniversary of another same-sex ruling that he read 12 years ago, which struck down state laws that made same-sex relations illegal.