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Important to our liberties and who we are that the court protects them. so when the states have periodically said you can t marry because of your race or you can t marry because you re not a good parent or whatever it might be, the courts have struck that down and said we all enjoy this equal fundamental right to marry. today the court said that about gay people. that there s a fundamental right and that same-sex couples can enjoy it on the same terms as everyone else. how significant, momentous, is this decision today, mary? this is momentous for a number of reasons. number one, it s marriage which is how we organize family life in this nation and it s so important to who people are and protections for their children and for one another. it s the person you love most in the world and the way that we express that is through marriage. so it s so personally important and profound. but then as another matter, it s a time when this court stood by the principles of saying we re not goin
And that was something that really seemed to factor into justice kennedy s decision here. i m going to read a part of the opinion. he says the marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples. that was also something we heard from him during the oral arguments. clearly he was concerned about the children of these same-sex couples and their dignity. absolutely. the michigan petitioners who i represent have five kids who were placed with them by the state, very vulnerable children who have loved them and loved them. as those children get older they ask, why aren t you able to marry? and that sense of you re different and deficient and not worthy of marriage is damaging for the whole family, including for the children. you have been part of this fight from the very beginning. i have to ask you, mary, this morning when we found out it was obergefell and that justice kin di was reading the opinion. what was your emotion like at that stage? well,
He married his husband john arthur in maryland because they couldn t get married in ohio where there was a ban. his husband died shortly after, he had alzheimer s disease and obergefell wanted to be put on the death certificate and the fight ensued. he was part of the reason why we are here today and why this is such a historic moment, because the justices so again ruling gays and lesbians have the right to marry. i m joined by mary bow gnat toe who argued this case in the court. you focused on how this is not only against states discriminating against gays and lesbians but this is a fundamental right for them to marry. in this nation there are certain things that are so