Marriage a Right for Same-Sex Couples in U.S. Supreme Court Decision

By GREG HAMBRICK (Patch Staff)

In a 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, same-sex marriage is now legal nationwide. The decision brings same-sex marriage to Georgia for the first time.

The decision was authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was joined by the four more liberal judges.

According to the decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, “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.”

Gov. Nathan Deal said Georgia would abide by the ruling.

“While I believe that this issue should be decided by the states and by legislatures, not the federal judiciary, I also believe in the rule of law,” Deal said in a statement. “The state of Georgia is subject to the laws of the United States, and we will follow them.”

State Attorney General Samuel Olens has instructed all state agencies to comply with the Supreme Court decision:

“This mandate requires Georgia to recognize same sex marriage in the same way it recognizes marriage between a man and a woman. Georgia’s local governments are now constitutionally required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, to issue those licenses in the same way and via the same procedures employed for all other applicants, and to recognize same-sex marriages on an equal footing with all other marriages.”

• Atlanta Mayor: “It is clear that the arc of history continues to bend ever closer toward justice.”
• Congressman Rob Woodall: “The narrowest of margins in this decision has overridden the voice of millions of Americans in sovereign states across the country.”
• Congressman Hank Johnson: “We are all more free when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love.”

An impossible act 12 years ago, same-sex marriage now exists in 37 states, primarily due to a wave of court decisions, along with the actions of a handful of state legislators and voter referendums.

The key victory came in a Supreme Court decision in 2013. In a 5-4 decision, the justices struck down portions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The decision didn’t address equality nationwide, but the reasoning used by the court would be applied again and again in lower court decisions that overturned state bans.

In October 2014, the Supreme Court refused to hear appeals from same-sex marriage opponents in five states, paving the way for nuptials in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin, and eventually ending bans in Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming.

That move by the justices was largely seen as the first indication that the Supreme Court was prepared to address the marriage issue. In January, the justices announced they would consider the 6th District case where the appeals court upheld same-sex marriage bans in Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.

Today’s ruling comes during a time of historic support for same-sex-marriage. American’s attitudes have shifted swiftly and dramatically in the last decade, according to public opinion polls. Only 27 percent of Americans thought gay marriage should be legal when the Gallup Poll began posing the question in 1996; last month, support had soared to 60 percent, up from 55 percent just a year ago.

Photo: Flickr/CreativeCommons/Ted Eytan