It’s a day so unlike the day before the ruling, Nevadans say
There was this old guy in white socks and sandals and a straw hat, and he smiled as he went out the door carrying a sign.
There was a chubby girl in a rainbow tank top, and there were two skinny kids, sisters, and they carried signs, too. “Equality now,” one of them said. “2 moms makes a right,” said the other.
They were jubilant, giddy, even, the couple hundred people who baked in a parking lot in the middle of town so they could cheer, and chant, and marvel, really, at how different things are now.
“I never thought in my lifetime I’d see it,”
said Kat Welniak, one of the “2 moms” from the sign. “I honestly didn’t.” But everything changed Wednesday. In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a provision of a federal law that denied benefits to married gay couples. The court also passed on making a decision in a California case. While stopping short of invalidating all prohibitions on same-sex marriage, the no decision effectively cleared the way for such marriages to resume in California, probably within a month.
To celebrate, a coalition of Nevada groups staged a rally outside the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas. The crowd looked to be a couple of hundred strong, though it was hard to tell because, in the 100plus-degree heat, many people left the rally to go inside for quick blasts of air conditioning.
Speakers, who included elected officials and gay rights advocates, said the battle is not over in Nevada.
The Legislature this year passed a bill that could overturn the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriages. But it will need to pass again in the next session, and then the issue would need to go before voters in 2016.