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SCOTUS takes thee, gay marriage, to be legal as SCOI yet to allow gay sex [READ JUDGMENT + Katju-ism]

In a landmark judgement, the US Supreme Court ruled on Friday that gay people can marry nationwide and states cannot ban same-sex marriage - an issue that divides America and India.

The 5-4 ruling giving LGBT rights activists their biggest victory came after decades of litigation and fast-changing public opinion that saw President Barack Obama come out in support of same sex marriage three years ago.

The majority opinion concluded with:

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.

His administration supported the challengers to the gay marriage bans in the apex court.

Unlike India, where homosexual intercourse is effectively criminalised again after the Supreme Court overruled the Delhi high court’s reading down of section 377, same-sex couples can marry in 36 US states today, but federal appeals courts have been divided over whether states must allow same-sex couples to marry and recognize such marriages performed elsewhere.

The Supreme Court is yet to deliver its decision on the curative petition against Justice GS Singhvi’s judgment re-affirming section 377’s legality, although it quickly dismissed review petitions of the judgment.

The 14 same-sex couples and two widowers who challenged gay marriage bans in Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio were just a few of the estimated 650,000 same-sex couples in the US, 125,000 of whom are raising children.

Lawyers for the four states argued their bans were justified by tradition and the distinctive characteristics of opposite-sex unions.

The issue, they said should be resolved democratically, at the polls and in state legislatures, rather than by judges.

The challengers included same-sex couples who wanted to marry, those who sought to have their lawful out-of-state marriage recognized, as well as those who wanted to amend a birth or death certificate with their marriage status.

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority with four liberal justices.

“In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were,” he added

In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia blasted the court’s “threat to American democracy.”

“The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me,” he wrote. “But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch.”

Read the judgment: Obergefell v. Hodges

Oral arguments of 28 April 2015:

Meanwhile, back in India…

…former Supreme Court judge Justice Markandey Katju posted on his Facebook page (via @subjudiced):

However, on his Twitter feed, Katju wrote:

Update 23:16: Katju has published a blog post:

Only 1.6% people are gay
While earlier some people thought that about 10% Americans were gay, later scientific surveys found that only 1.6% Americans were gay.
Does this not prove that gay relationship is unnatural ?
A man's body is different from that of a woman's. There is attraction between men and women, and this is nature's method to continue the species. Is there no such thing as nature ?
However, it is true that the minds of those 1.6% are so wired as to be attracted to the same sex. So there should be freedom in this respect, and homosexuality should not be a criminal offence, as it is in India vide section 377 I.P.C.'

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/paul-lagarde/cdc-only-16-americans-identify-gay-or-lesbian

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