Following is my second post on the topic of Justice for the spring 2024 MLS Collaborative Digital Archives Assignment. Here’s my first post, which includes background on the assignment.
On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) delivered its 33-page opinion on Obergefell v. Hodges, a case that was centered on marriage rights for same-sex couples.
In justice for same-sex couples seeking marriage rights, the SCOTUS majority opinion HELD. The majority opinion was written by Justice Kennedy, who scribed a discerning argument with compelling prose on how the questions raised by the case were protected by the 14th Amendment’s clauses, where no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Additionally, Justice Kennedy, regarding the definition of marriage in the United States and its evolution, wrote:
“The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity. The petitioners in these cases seek to find that liberty by marrying someone of the same sex and having their marriages deemed lawful on the same terms and conditions as marriages between persons of the opposite sex” (p. 2).
And in relation to the MLS 512 assignment, in contributing to “a living, expanding, in-process collection of artifacts whose meaning changes over time.”:
“These new insights have strengthened, not weakened, the institution of marriage. Indeed, changed understandings of marriage are characteristic of a Nation where new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations, often through perspectives that begin in pleas or protests and then are considered in the political sphere and the judicial process. This dynamic can be seen in the Nation’s experiences with the rights of gays and lesbians” (p. 7).
The SCOTUS Obergefell v. Hodges opinion is my second artifact on justice, because the majority decision changed the law of the nation. Humans in love with each other, regardless of their sexual orientation, were now free to marry and have all of the given rights of marriage.
Imperative to a free society.
The document I refer to is here.
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