Historic gay marriage ruling stirs emotion across US
Some snapshots of Americans reacting to the Supreme Court ruling declaring that same-sex couples have a right to marry in all 50 states.
Customers at a Dallas comic-book store were confronted by a sign Friday warning that the business might open late because the owners were "waiting at the courthouse to see if the Supreme Court is going to let us get married."
[...] Gov. Greg Abbott issued a memo saying the government should not pressure people to violate their "sincerely held religious beliefs."
Workers draped a giant rainbow flag over the front door of City Hall, where then-Mayor Gavin Newsom ignited a legal challenge to California's same-sex marriage ban 11 years ago by ordering clerks to marry a gay couple in defiance of state law.
The California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2013 after several legal setbacks, including the passage of Proposition 8, which briefly banned same-sex weddings in the state.
Newsom, who is now California's lieutenant governor, reminisced at a news conference about that Valentine's Day when he hoped that his action would spark a legal challenge.
A small number of same-sex marriage opponents protested the Supreme Court decision by unfurling a banner on a freeway overpass across the San Francisco Bay in Berkeley.
The Supreme Court's ruling comes a little over a year after Piazza struck down a 2004 voter-approved amendment and an earlier state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
More than 500 couples were married in the week following Piazza's ruling before it was suspended by the state Supreme Court pending a review.
Bishop Michael Jarrell issued a statement calling on Catholics to not attend same-sex weddings, saying "civil disobedience may be a proper response" in some cases.
Friday's ruling was a bittersweet victory for Richard Carlbom, who led efforts to defeat a Minnesota gay marriage ban in 2012 and then legalize it in 2013 before becoming director of state campaigns for Freedom to Marry.
Love was the lead plaintiff in the case that led a federal judge in Kentucky to strike down the state's ban on gay marriage — a precursor to Friday's ruling by the Supreme Court.
Legalizing gay marriage in Iowa carried a heavy cost for three justices of the Iowa Supreme Court who were booted off the bench in a subsequent judicial retention election.