5-4 decision, Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage

Excerpts from The Washington Post:

The Supreme Court on Friday delivered an historic victory for gay rights, ruling 5-4 that the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry no matter where they live and that states may no longer reserve the right only for heterosexual couples.

The court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

All four of the court’s most conservative

members—Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.—dissented and each wrote separate opinions.

Reading a dissent from the bench for the first time in his tenure, Roberts said, “This is a court, not a legislature.”