Jun 26, 2015
Equality NC Responds to Supreme Court Marriage Ruling
North Carolina's largest LGBT advocacy organization calls decision a “let down to hundreds of thousands of families.”
RALEIGH, N.C. - Equality NC, North Carolina’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocacy organization, released the following statement today to a U.S. Supreme Court’s [5-4] ruling requiring states to respect marriages performed in other states but not requiring states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
This statement can be attributed to Chris Sgro, executive director of Equality NC:
"The Supreme Court’s historic decision in Oberfegell vs. Hodges effectively affirmed the common-sense reality that couples who are legally married should be treated as what they are – married – no matter where they are living or traveling.
But the justices failed to uphold the full freedom to marry, and in doing so let down hundreds of thousands of families, let down the national supermajority of Americans who support marriage, and failed to live up to the promise of the country, that each of us comes before our government as an equal. We are one country with one Constitution. The patchwork of marriage discrimination in America is unsustainable.
This partial victory means we must continue doing the work until committed couples in all 50 states have the freedom to marry the person they love.
We will continue working the national strategy that bas brought us this far – we will win additional states and grow public support until another set of justices gets it right, ensuring that all Americans have the freedom to marry the person they love."
On October 10, 2014 North Carolina became the 29th state to win the freedom to marry. This month, the legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto to pass legislation allowing certain public officials to recuse themselves from marrying same-sex couples.
Equality NC and its partners throughout the state will host “Decision Day” events today to help the community understand the ruling. Community members, media, and elected officials can RSVP participation and learn exact times for these events at equalitync.org/marriage.
Equality NC is a statewide organization working to secure equal rights and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender North Carolinians.