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Last week the Supreme Court of the United States reached a landmark decision on the long-festering issue of Marriage Equality in America. On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court returned a decision in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges. The court ruled that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The ruling overturned a previous precedent, Baker v. Nelson, making gay marriage legal in the United States.

Social media blew up immediately with people on both sides of the argument offering both celebration and derision of the verdict. Counties Clerks all over the country are refusing to issue marriage licenses to both homosexual and heterosexual couples out of protest of the ruling.  When we checked what people in our beloved hometown thought about the decision, the results were overwhelmingly positive.

 

“I feel that this decision has been made on the right side of history, as have all other decisions based on human and equal rights have proven to be," said Laura Shine, DJ at WFPK. "Being gay is not a choice, and I am so grateful to now be able to spend the rest of my life with the person I love with the same federal rights as all other married couples have. I am grateful that my primary relationship will be taken seriously by society. It means more than words can express.”

 

“When I heard about the Supreme Court's decision, I was ecstatic," said make-up artist Matt Goodlett. "It's nice that the highest court in the nation acknowledges that love is more important than hate. If anything it makes marriage more valid. It seemed strange to have an institution like marriage that was about unity and love but exclude people from engaging due to the way they love.”

 

 

“I think the only thing I can think to say is, finally,” Comedian Patrick Passafiume said.

 

“It's Brilliant," said Brandon Simpson. "For the first time in my life I feel like my government and country are acknowledging and validating my existence. I'm not a mental or social disease. I'm not an anecdote in a two thousand year old game of Telephone. I'm a legal citizen with rights and protections. What a strange thing to feel so much joy for, but I kind of cried when my roommate wrote me at work to tell me what the Supreme Court had just done. You have to understand I'd written it off so long ago. The ability to marry...or more importantly to me, the ability to be recognized by my country as a sane and whole individual, despite the fact that I am a man who prefers men. For the first time in my life I feel like my government put my community's rights before the belief system of one particular group of religions. My laws shouldn't be governed by someone else's faith based ideas or opinions. Lastly, I have lost much and seen others lose so much more to the fight for freedom. I've seen friends hospitalized by a stranger's need to express his disgust. I've had others who took their own lives because they truly believed their world would never get better...never accept them. I wish I could show them the world the day this happened in the Supreme Court. I wish I could show them the love. Because really..in the end. Love won.”

 

“I’m all for it!" said Diaz from New Country Q103.1. "GLAD that our government has accepted people whose only goal is to love one another. Now can we quit referring to it as ‘GAY marriage’ and just ‘marriage?’”

 

 

"Last week was the most influential week the SCOTUS has had in my lifetime," attorney Anthony Gadlage said. "In fact, I do not know whether the highest court in the land has ever created such a wide-sweeping effect on the nation. The ramifications of the gay marriage case have immediately caused a whirlwind of religious zealots (and anti-religious zealots) to come, seemingly, out of the woodwork. I cannot recall a time, in my thirty-two years, where so many people actually cared about something the SCOTUS had to say. I can only hope that the interest is not short-lived because I have a feeling, especially from what I have seen of today's headlines: this issue is far from resolved. To some, the SCOTUS has finally given them something they have been denied, wrongfully, for centuries. To others, you are denying them their religious beliefs. Neither of those positions will be easily swayed.”

 

“About time," said Dan Alten, a comedian at LAFF Fest Records.

“I think it is amazing that the people of Kentucky have stood up together to give everyone to opportunity to marry the one they love," said Kristi Stewart, founder of Horns Up Against Cancer. "In this day and age, it should not matter if you are gay or straight. Love is love. I for one am happy to see this law finally pass.”

 

"I've never understood how two people who love each other getting married was an affront to traditional marriage," said Bryan Puckett, owner Little Heart Records. "Especially in a society with a crazy high divorce rate. You're telling me two gay guys getting married makes your fourth marriage less special? It's this weird logic train where people fight something that has nothing to do with them. If you don't want to participate in a gay marriage...don't have one."

 

Artwork courtesy of:
Rena Schild/Shutterstock​
Tashatuvango/Shutterstock
Fotos593/Shutterstock
Lindsay Douglas/Shutterstock