SUPREME COURT PLAZA, Washington, DC – On news this morning that the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the marriage equality case Obergefell v. Hodges, Constitutional Accountability Center lawyers — who were in the Court for today’s announcement — issued the following reaction:

CAC President Doug Kendall said, “In a resounding victory for gay and lesbian couples, the Court today ruled that the U.S. Constitution recognizes a right to marriage equality under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and and Equal Protection Clauses. In simple, but profoundly important words, Justice Kennedy declared, ‘the petitioners simply ask for equal dignity, and the Constitution grants it to them.'”

CAC Civil Rights Director David Gans said, “Protecting liberty and equality for all is at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees. Today, the Court powerfully reaffirmed these core constitutional protections.”

CAC Vice President Judith E. Schaeffer said, “Chief Justice Roberts said that today’s ruling ‘has nothing to do with the Constitution.’ He is utterly wrong. The Constitution has everything to do with this historic day.”

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Resources:

CAC’s “friend of the court” brief in Obergefell v. Hodges: http://theusconstitution.org/sites/default/files/briefs/CAC_Amicus-Obergefell_v_Hodges.pdf

“Hopeful after almost 30 years of waiting in line for marriage equality,” Judith E. Schaeffer, USA Today,

April 28, 2015: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/04/28/marriage-equality-supreme-court-lawyers-column/26522929/

“Legal ground flimsy for state gay marriage bans,” David H. Gans, Detroit (MI) Free Press, April 25, 2015: http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/04/25/gay-marriage-supreme-court/26340649/

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Constitutional Accountability Center (www.theusconstitution.org) is a think tank, public interest law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history.

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