The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Friday that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
The ruling of the case called Obergefell v. Hodges found that, by the Constitution's protection of due process and equal protection, the states cannot ban same-sex marriages, and that same-sex couples have a right to receive marriage licenses.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion of the case.
"As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death," he wrote. "It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage."
"Without the recognition, stability and predictability that marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser," Kennedy said.
Justice Kennedy was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan in favor of the vote.
Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, dissented.
"If you are among the many Americans -- of whatever sexual orientation -- who favor expanding same-sex marriage," Chief Justice Roberts said, "by all means celebrate today's decision. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it."
"Five lawyers have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law," he wrote in his dissenting opinion.
Justice Scalia said that today's ruling "says that my ruler and the ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court."
Previous to the ruling, gay marriage was decided by the states, and was considered legal in 36 of them. Today's ruling legalizes same-sex marriages across the country.
Christian leaders who have strongly expressed their opposition of same-sex marriages since the oral arguments in late April are likely to speak out in regards to the decision. The primary concern of Christian leaders involved the worry that they will no longer be able to refuse to act in accordance with their beliefs regarding marriage.
