While aboard Air Force One en route to Senegal, President Barack Obama prasied the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act in a statement issued by the White House.
I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act. This was discrimination enshrined in law. It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people. The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it. We are a people who declared that we are all created equal – and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.
This ruling is a victory for couples who have long fought for equal treatment under the law; for children whose parents’ marriages will now be recognized, rightly, as legitimate; for families that, at long last, will get the respect and protection they deserve; and for friends and supporters who have wanted nothing more than to see their loved ones treated fairly and have worked hard to persuade their nation to change for the better.
So we welcome today’s decision, and I’ve directed the Attorney General to work with other members of my Cabinet to review all relevant federal statutes to ensure this decision, including its implications for Federal benefits and obligations, is implemented swiftly and smoothly.
On an issue as sensitive as this, knowing that Americans hold a wide range of views based on deeply held beliefs, maintaining our nation’s commitment to religious freedom is also vital. How religious institutions define and consecrate marriage has always been up to those institutions. Nothing about this decision – which applies only to civil marriages – changes that.
The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.
Obama also called the Proposition 8 plaintiffs as they stood outside the high court. Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, who founded the group that brought the Proposition 8 case, answered the phone as the cameras rolled at MSNBC.
Earlier this month, Liechtenstein's parliament voted to legalize same-sex marriage in the German-speaking microstate.
Lawmakers voted nearly unanimously to approve the measure, with 24 of 25 members of parliament supporting it.
The law will take effect on January 1, 2025.
Daniel Seger, the parliamentary group spokesperson for the conservative Progressive Citizens' Party -- which controls the majority along with the center-left Patriotic Union -- called passage of the marriage law amendment a "big relief" after its second reading.
"We felt the pressure and the expectation that we should be the last German-speaking country to introduce marriage for everyone," he said.
Thailand's Senate voted to approve a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, putting the country on the cusp of becoming the first in Southeast Asia to enact such a law.
The bill changes references in current law from gender-specific terms like “man,” “woman,” husband,” and “wife” to gender-neutral terms.
It recognizes the inheritance rights of one partner following the other partner’s death, regardless of gender, and grants same-sex couples the right to adopt.
The bill was previously approved in March by a vote of 400-10 in the country's lower house of parliament. On Tuesday, June 18, the Senate passed it 130-4, with 18 members abstaining.
The Republican Party of Texas has approved a platform attacking a variety of LGBTQ rights, including marriage equality and same-sex parenting.
The party's 50-page platform, which delegates approved during the party's annual state convention in San Antonio on May 25, contains several planks meant to cater to social conservatives. While party platforms are not binding, they generally provide voters with an idea of the issues that will be prioritized by party leadership should they take power and a statement of a party's values.
Among the Texas GOP's various planks are opposition to marriage equality, including a full repeal of the Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that overturned various state bans on same-sex marriage, denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and the refusal to recognize same-sex marriages that were legally performed in other states as valid.
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