The U.S. Supreme Court rocked the United States Friday with its 5-4 decision to make it legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry in all 50 states.
This victory for same-sex couples and gay rights advocates makes the United States the 21st and the most populous country to legalize same-sex marriage.
The court ruled that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated the equal protection and due process clauses under the 14th amendment.
The U.S. civil marriage movement has roots going back to the 1970s, while it still took 42 years for several states to lift the ban on their same-sex marriage laws, making them the first states to do so. Prior to June 26, same-sex marriage was legal to some degree in 37 states.
In Arizona, same-sex marriage has been legal since Oct. 17 of last year after two lawsuits which U.S. District Judge John Sedwick ruled in favor of a right to same-sex marriage.
After the U.S. Supreme Court declared their ruling, citizens took to social media to share their opinions with an overwhelming amount of positivity. With the use of #LoveWins, Twitter added a rainbow heart to the tweet, the rainbow being a symbol of gay pride. Many companies also changed their social media icons and/or created graphics and videos to share their support for the monumental ruling. Snapchat, the photo and video-sharing app that deletes user’s content after a certain period created several geotags for users when sending content to friends.
Although a monumental moment in history for same-sex couples and gay rights activists and supporters, this is only one of the many other hurdles same-sex couples still have to face such as same-sex couple adoption and LGBT discrimination laws. The battle for LGBTs and their supporters doesn’t end here.
