RENO, Nev. Nevada is one of 30 states with a constitution that defined marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. But the U. Supreme Court in ruled state bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.
New York Becomes the Sixth State to Legalize Gay Marriage
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Same-sex marriage in the United States | LGBT Info | Fandom
June 26, marks a major milestone for civil rights in the United States, as the Supreme Court announces its decision in Obergefell v. By one vote, the court rules that same-sex marriage cannot be banned in the United States and that all same-sex marriages must be recognized nationwide, finally granting same-sex couples equal rights to heterosexual couples under the law. In , just two years after the Stonewall Riots that unofficially marked the beginning of the struggle for gay rights and marriage equality, the Minnesota Supreme Court had found same-sex marriage bans constitutional, a precedent which the Supreme Court had never challenged. As homosexuality gradually became more accepted in American culture, the conservative backlash was strong enough to force President Bill Clinton to sign the Defense of Marriage Act DOMA , prohibiting the recognition of same-sex marriages at the federal level, into law in Over the next decade, many states banned same-sex marriage, while Vermont instituted same-sex civil unions in and Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in
State Same-Sex Marriage State Laws Map
About Follow Donate. In , the U. Supreme Court ruled all state bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry nationwide.
Over the weekend, I wrote about President Obama's Friday interview with MTV, during which he responded to a question about marriage equality with the statement, "I think for us to try to legislate federally into this is probably the wrong way to go. The title of this post is intentionally misleading, because marriage equality is both a federal issue and a state issue. But this fact is often glossed over in the mainstream media's coverage, leading to confusion and sometimes contradiction on things like the Defense of Marriage Act DOMA , state marriage laws and, of course, federal lawsuits regarding both. From the very beginning, the United States has been exactly what its name suggests: a union of individual state governments, each with its own laws and public policy. When the founders laid out the system through which these states would come together and function as a federal government, they were careful to delineate which governmental powers were reserved for the federal government and which were the sole province of the states.
