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Supreme Court Rules Gay Marriage Legal Nationwide

 Two women kiss in front of the gay-rights landmark, The Stonewall Inn, as New Yorkers celebrate the Supreme Court's ruling that gay marriage is legal nationwide.
Two women kiss in front of the gay-rights landmark, The Stonewall Inn, as New Yorkers celebrate the Supreme Court's ruling that gay marriage is legal nationwide.
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DNAinfo/Sybile Penhirin

NEW YORK CITY — The Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry throughout the country, according to reports.

The five-to-four decision, which reverses a ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is a landmark moment in the gay rights movement and bars states from preventing same-sex couples from marrying each other, according to reports.

"The Court, in this decision, holds same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry in all States," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority.

"It is so ordered," the justice concluded.

Kennedy's decision countered the controversial idea that same-sex marriage would devalue all marriages.

"The lifelong union of a man and a woman always has promised nobility and dignity to all persons, without regard to their station in life," Kennedy wrote.

"In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they were," he added.

The same-sex couples in the case before the supreme court shared this view of marriage, he said.

"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," Kennedy wrote.

"They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law," he added.

The decision comes nearly four years and one month after the New York Legislature's decision to legalize same-sex marriage in the state.