America
Same-sex couples can now marry across US
By
By Arun KumarWashington, June 26
Giving gay rights
activists their biggest victory yet, the US Supreme Court ruled Friday
that same-sex couples can marry nationwide and states cannot ban such
marriages - an issue that divides America and India too.
President
Barack Obama, who come out in support of same sex marriage only three
years ago in the face of fast-changing public opinion in the midst of
his 2012 re-election campaign, hailed the apex court's 5-4 ruling as "a
victory for America".
Social progress sometimes comes in small
increments, he said from the White House Rose Garden, "and then there
are days like this, when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with
justice that arrives like a thunderbolt".
"America should be very
proud," said Obama whose administration supported the challengers to
the gay marriage bans in the apex court.
Unlike India, where
homosexuality is a criminal offence, same-sex couples can marry in 36
American states today, but federal appeals courts have been divided over
whether states must allow same-sex couples to marry and recognize such
marriages performed elsewhere.
The 14 same-sex couples and two
widowers who challenged gay marriage bans in Michigan, Tennessee,
Kentucky and Ohio were just a few of the estimated 650,000 same-sex
couples in the US, 125,000 of whom are raising children.
Lawyers
for the four states argued their bans were justified by tradition and
the distinctive characteristics of opposite-sex unions.
The issue, they said, should be resolved democratically, at the polls and in state legislatures, rather than by judges.
The
challengers included same-sex couples who wanted to marry, those who
sought to have their lawful out-of-state marriage recognized, as well as
those who wanted to amend a birth or death certificate with their
marriage status.
"No union is more profound than marriage, for it
embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and
family," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority with four
liberal justices.
"In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were," he added
In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia blasted the court's "threat to American democracy."
"The
substance of today's decree is not of immense personal importance to
me," he wrote. "But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in
today's judicial Putsch."
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])