Friday's Gay Marriage Ruling: What It Means For Pennsylvania

By Justin Heinze:

One of the most divisive legal issues in American history was resolved Friday when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, 5-4.

For a little over a year, Pennsylvania has been one of 36 states - plus the District of Columbia - that allow same-sex marriage.

However, Pennsylvania was the last state in the Northeast to approve the bill, and it is only recently that statewide momentum has shifted in favor of the LGBT community.

“When I first introduced the marriage legalization bill (in Pennsylvania) people said I was crazy,” State Sen. Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery/Delaware) said via Facebook on Friday. “And I was, and I’m getting help. But I couldn’t get a single co-sponsor. Now, justice has finally come to our nation, evoking my favorite Martin Luther King quote: ‘The Arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.’”

“Today, it got there.”

Nationally, inertia seemed to have been building towards Friday’s watershed Obergefell v. Hodges decision ever since Vice President Joe Biden expressed his support for gay marriage in 2012 - even before President Obama.

But the President soon followed suit, and states around the country began to legalize same-sex marriages in their own way.

While Friday’s ruling does not change anything about the legality of marriage in Pennsylvania, it does affect couples that were considering moving to other states.

The justices addressed two key questions: whether gay marriage bans – currently in place in 13 states – are constitutional, and whether states can refuse to recognize marriages performed outside their borders.

After Friday’s decision, same-sex couples that are married in Pennsylvania can move to any other state and have their marital status recognized there.

There was not universal support for the ruling.

Presidential hopeful and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum expressed his dissent on his Twitter account, questioning the authority of the Supreme Court in such an important case.

“The Court is 1 of 3 coequal branches of government & they have an imperfect record,” he wrote. “Stakes are too high to cede marriage to unelected judges.”

Although Pennsylvania lagged behind the region in approving same sex marriage, the public tide had been turning in favor of the LGBT community for some time.

In recent months, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Congressman Charlie Dent (R-PA 15) both publicly shifted their stance on the issue, with both now in favor.

“Today, I join with millions across our great nation in celebrating this landmark decision to affirm marriage equality in the United States of America,” said Congressman Chaka Fattah (D PA 2). “Now, LGBTQ individuals will have the right to marry whomever they choose, wherever they choose. Now, all families will have equal, protective rights and benefits in all 50 states.”

“This is a monumental step forward in our country’s pursuit of equal rights for all. Today, everyone who has fought so hard for this moment can stand proud knowing that marriage is a fundamental right. It is a proud day for America, because love has won.”

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane echoed her words from her July 2013 when she refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

“Today’s landmark Supreme Court decision affirming the legality of same sex marriage is a victory not only for same sex couples, their families and children, but affirms the rights of all citizens for equal treatment under the law,” Kane said. “Our great nation spends billions of dollars protecting the civil rights of human beings around the world. It is appropriate that in our system of justice, we vigorously defend our Constitution in every instance and protect the civil liberties of those here at home as well.”

The first openly gay legislator in Pennsylvania history, State Rep. Brian Sims (D-Philadelphia), reposted the concluding paragraph of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision in Friday’s case:

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 a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect 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 judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.