The LuLac Edition #2971, June 27th, 2015

SUPREME COURT SAYS GAY MARRIAGE LEGAL

Justice Anthony Kennedy. (Photo: New York Times).

Diana Ross and The Supremes sang “You Can’t Hurry Love, you just have to wait”. Most of America has been saying that for decades to same sex couples. But today the discussion on whether same-sex marriage should be allowed in the United States was put to rest and finally settled. Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled gay and lesbian couples can get married anywhere in the country. Anywhere.
“No longer may this liberty be denied,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the historic decision. “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.”Marriage is a “keystone of our social order,” Justice Kennedy said, adding that the plaintiffs in the case were seeking “equal dignity in the eyes of the law.”
The 14 states that had banned gay marriage are Georgia, Ohio, Texas, Arkansas, Michigan, Nebraska, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, most of Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Tennessee must now comply with the law. . Those states must now lift their bans and allow gay and lesbian couples to marry. Marriage licenses were already being processed as early as Friday afternoon in many of those states.
Now religious organizations are exempt from this ruling. They can still make their own decisions about whether clergy will conduct gay marriages in their places of worship. Southern Baptists, Mormons and other conservative churches that believe God intended marriage to be a union only between a man and a woman said the ruling won't change their decisions not to allow same-sex marriages in their churches
AOL reported that there’s an estimated 390,000 married same-sex couples in the United States, according to the Williams Institute, which tracks the demographics of gay and lesbian Americans. Another 70,000 couples living in states that do not currently permit them to wed would get married in the next three years, the institute says. Roughly 1 million same-sex couples, married and unmarried, live together in the United States, the institute reported.
So June 26, 2015, will go down in history books as the moment gay marriage was declared legal across the United States. Supreme Court, 5 to 4.