Clarion words from Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in the Supreme Court decision making Equal Marriage the Law of the Land.
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. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate,
marriage embodies that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to
say they respect the idea of marriage.
Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they
seek to find its fulfillment for themselves.
Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from
one of civilization’s oldest institutions.
They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The Judgement of the Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit is reversed.
It
is so ordered.
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