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Margaret Marshall: How State Courts Traditionally Hold Up Individual Liberties

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Jim Obergefell rides in the San Francisco Pride Parade on Sunday, two days after the Supreme Court's landmark decision to require that states issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. (AP Images for Human Rights Campaign)
Jim Obergefell rides in the San Francisco Pride Parade on Sunday, two days after the Supreme Court's landmark decision to require that states issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. (AP Images for Human Rights Campaign)

Last Friday, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision to make same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States, Margaret Marshall was elated.

"Where once my court had been vilified by some for its Goodridge decision, our nation has once again followed Massachusetts," wrote the former chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court in The Boston Globe Monday.

In 2003, with Goodridge versus Department of Public Health, Margaret Marshall became the first justice in the U.S. to issue an opinion legalizing same-sex marriage.

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Margaret Marshall, former chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court and senior counsel at Choate Hall & Stewart LLP in Boston.

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The Boston Globe: State Courts Are The Chief Guardians Of Individual Liberties

  • "How did Massachusetts get so far ahead of the rest of the country? And what does it mean to say that we live in the United States, when we Americans so vehemently disagree about fundamental issues of social policy? The question of what keeps our vast, diverse country united is timeless. It goes to the heart of the American system of government, which I revere."

The New York Times: Why Massachusetts Led The Way On Same-Sex Marriage

  • "Margaret Marshall, the former chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, has heard the question before: Did she ever imagine that the nation’s attitudes toward same-sex marriage would change so fast?"

This segment aired on June 29, 2015.

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