Crowds cheer top court decision for gay marriage rights_美文

Crowds cheer top court decision for gay marriage rights

President Barack Obama, currently traveling in Africa, hailed the decision. "We are a people who declared that we are all created equal - and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," he said in a statement.

DOMA denied married gay and lesbians a raft of federal benefits that straight couples take for granted, from tax breaks to family hospital visits and the ability to sponsor a spouse for a residence visa.

The court also said a case on Proposition 8, a 2008 California voter initiative prohibiting same-sex marriage in the nation's most populous state, was improperly brought before them.

That 5-4 decision enabled the justices to dodge the thorny issue of whether same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, and means that gay marriages will likely resume in California.

Twelve US states plus the District of Columbia now recognize same-sex marriage, but about 30 states have decreed that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman.

Obama is the first sitting US president to come out publicly in favor of marriage equality.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president had telephoned 84-year-old Edith Windsor, the plaintiff in the DOMA case, and "congratulated her on this victory, which was a long time in the making."

Obama also called Chad Griffin, head of the Human Rights Campaign, the leading US lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights group, and the plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case to congratulate them on a "tremendous victory".