10 hours ago
Reflecting on Same-Sex Marriage Ruling a Decade Later
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A little after 10 a.m. on June 26, 2015, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy started summarizing his majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges from the Supreme Court bench. Six and a half minutes later, after reviewing the details of the case and reflecting on history, culture and politics, he announced the court's ruling.
'The court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry in all states,' Justice Kennedy said. 'No longer may this liberty be denied to them.'
I was downstairs, in the court's press room. As soon as the justice began talking, court personnel handed out copies of the 98-page decision, which included five opinions. Reporters rushed to their cubicles to skim it.
Just three years before, initial reports from CNN and Fox News mistakenly said that the Supreme Court had struck down the heart of the Affordable Care Act. In the marriage case, I wanted to be fast — but I definitely wanted to be right.
I had covered the court for The New York Times since 2008, collaborating with a series of superb editors. That year, I was working closely with Jill Agostino, an unflappable colleague in the paper's Washington bureau. We spent weeks preparing draft articles anticipating various outcomes. I asked her not long ago what she remembered about that morning.
'You called me directly when you got the decision, and you had read through enough of it in a hurry, but of course we were both so terrified of making a mistake,' she wrote in an email. 'We wanted to be quick, but not too quick. You said, '5-to-4 upholding … ' and then you paused, and then you said: 'Yes, upholding same-sex marriage. Go ahead and send it.''
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