26th June 2015 Gay marriage is legal throughout the USA In a historic and landmark decision, the US Supreme Court today ruled in favour of same-sex marriage throughout the USA.
The case, Obergefell v. Hodges, was a consolidation of three other same-sex marriage cases, Tanco v. Haslam (Tennessee), DeBoer v. Snyder (Michigan) and Bourke v. Beshear (Kentucky), challenging state laws that prohibited same-sex marriage. With a majority of 5-4, the Court held that state recognition of same-sex marriage is a constitutional right under the 14th Amendment, due to the 1868 Equal Protection Clause, which provides that no state shall deny any person within its jurisdiction "the equal protection of the laws." This ruling means the number of states where gay marriage is legal will rise from 37 to all 50. The USA is now the 21st country to legalise same-sex marriage nationwide. Summing up, Justice Anthony Kennedy stated:
On Twitter, the White House changed its avatar to the rainbow colours. President Barack Obama declared the ruling as a "victory for America" and said: "When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free." "It's my hope that gay marriage will soon be a thing of the past, and from this day forward it will simply be 'marriage,'" an emotional Jim Obergefell said outside the court. In a related development, a scientific study this month finds that children of same-sex parents experience "no difference" on a range of social and behavioural outcomes compared to children of heterosexual or single parents. Published in Social Science Research, the paper examined thousands of peer-reviewed articles going back decades and found "overwhelming" consensus on the issue among researchers. "As same-sex marriage has been debated in courts across the country, there has been the lingering question about the effects of same-sex parenting on children," explains Jimi Adams, associate professor and lead author. "I wanted to analyse the research from past decades to determine if there was consensus amongst researchers about that effect. I found overwhelming evidence that scientists agree that there is not a negative impact to children of same-sex couples."
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