It spawned the hashtag: #LoveWins! On 26 June, the Supreme Court of the United States – which decides on the constitutionality of laws passed by congress and individual states – issued a landmark civil rights ruling forcing all 50 states to allow same-sex marriage. Penning the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy declared of lesbian and gay couples: “They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right”.
That same day, lesbian and gay couples lined up for marriage licenses across the remaining 13 Republican-controlled states that had held out against the rising tide of same-sex marriage recognition spreading across the rest of America.