Today, June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in a 5-4 decision that the US Constitution ensures the right to same-sex marriage. This historic decision comes two days before the 46th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City—a landmark in the movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights—and legalizes same-sex marriage nationwide. Today’s ruling will give LGBTQ couples who marry access to such benefits as family health care coverage, family and medical leave, hospital visitation, insurance and retirement benefits, and tuition remission. With this decision, the US joins a growing list of countries where same-sex marriage is recognized as legal.
For decades ARL has worked to foster diversity and inclusion in research library operations and culture. ARL president Deborah Jakubs said, “The Association of Research Libraries commends the US Supreme Court for taking this stand to promote the equality of all Americans under the law. ARL strongly supports diversity and inclusion in the workplace, in library collections and services, and in society at large. This ruling is a tremendous step toward a more inclusive, egalitarian society and will enable our profession to more easily support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer staff and our user populations.”
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 124 research libraries in the US and Canada. ARL’s mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the web at https://www.arl.org/.
