Finally! Let the celebration (and the asshattery) begin!

After the truly horrible attacks on racial, and ethnic, and gender minorities in the United States of this past year, I am feeling so relieved and happy that the Supreme Court finally–finally!–ruled that the civil institution of marriage is a civil right, and that therefore, sexual orientation and gender identification have fuckall to do with it!

This is only a start, and it is sure to be challenged by all the assholes who honestly think that only they, privileged majority that they are, should have rights. (May they rot in everlasting hell, amen.)

To everyone who fought for this moment before us. Today we stand on the shoulders of giants. #LoveWins pic.twitter.com/WokmQXcmMo

— DCHomos (@DCHomos) June 26, 2015

From Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion (which is truly worth reading in its entirety), a lot of quotes:

The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allowpersons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity. The petitioners in these cases seek to find thatliberty by marrying someone of the same sex and havingtheir marriages deemed lawful on the same terms and conditions as marriages between persons of the opposite sex.

…

Were their intent to demean the revered idea and reality of marriage, thepetitioners’ claims would be ofa different order. But thatis neither their purpose nor their submission. To the contrary, it is the enduring importance of marriage that underlies the petitioners’ contentions. This, they say, is their whole point. Far from seeking to devalue marriage, the petitioners seek it for themselves because of their respect—and need—for its privileges and responsibilities. And their immutable nature dictates that same-sex marriage is their only real path to this profound commitment.

…

The identification and protection of fundamental rights is an enduring part of the judicial duty to interpret the Constitution.

…

This analysis compels the conclusion that same-sex couples may exercise the right to marry. The four principles and traditions to be discussed demonstrate that the reasons marriage is fundamental under the Constitution apply with equal force to same-sex couples.

…

…by virtue of their exclusion from that institution, same-sex couples are denied the constellation of benefits that the States have linked to marriage. This harm results in more than just material burdens. Same-sex couples are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex couples would deem intolerable in their own lives. As the State itself makes marriage all the more precious by the significance it attaches to it, exclusion from that status has the effect of teaching that gays and lesbians are unequal in important respects. It demeans gays and lesbians for the State to lock them out of a central institution of the Nation’s society. Same-sex couples, too, may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage and seek fulfillment in its highest meaning.

…

Loving did not ask about a “right to inter-racial marriage”; Turner did not ask about a “right of

inmates to marry”; and Zablocki did not ask about a “right of fathers with unpaid child support duties to marry.” Rather, each case inquired about the right to marry in its comprehensive sense, asking if there was a sufficient justification for excluding the relevant class from the right.

…

The right to marry is fundamental as a matter of history and tradition, but rights come not from ancient sources alone. They rise, too, from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era. Many who deem same-sex

marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here. But when that sincere, personal opposition becomes enacted law and public policy, the necessary consequence is to

put the imprimatur of the State itself on an exclusion that soon demeans or stigmatizes those whose own liberty is then denied. Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right.

The right of same-sex couples to marry that is part of the liberty promised by the Fourteenth Amendment is derived, too, from that Amendment’s guarantee of the equal protection of the laws.

…

It is now clear that the challenged laws burden the liberty of same-sex couples, and it must be further acknowledged that they abridge central precepts of equality.

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These considerations lead to the conclusion that the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them.

 …

…the Constitution contemplates that democracy is the appropriate process for change, so long as that process does not abridge fundamental rights.

…

The dynamic of our constitutional system is that individuals need not await legislative action before asserting a fundamental right. The Nation’s courts are open to injured individuals who come to

them to vindicate their own direct, personal stake in our basic charter. An individual can invoke a right to constitutional protection when he or she is harmed, even if the broader public disagrees and

even if the legislature refuses to act.

…

It is of no moment whether advocates of same-sex marriage now enjoy or lack momentum in the democratic process. The issue before the Court here is the legal ques tion whether the Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples to marry.

…

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they

disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

To those who have the gall to contend that the Supreme Court should not make a decision that protects the most frequently and viciously attacked segments of the country’s citizenship, I say: shame on you.

Edited to add this screenshot from Courtney Milan’s tweet stream:

And once more, with feeling:

And yet one more:

The money quote from @SteveSSanders : pic.twitter.com/D6q6wZr9cF

— Courtney Milan (@courtneymilan) June 26, 2015

 (Yes, I need to stop editing this)