[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 7, 2015)]
[House]
[Page H4778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           MARRIAGE EQUALITY

  (Mr. TAKANO asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to enter the following words 
into the Congressional Record:
  ``No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the 
highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In 
forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once 
they were.
  ``As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage 
embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand 
these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage.
  ``Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that 
they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to 
be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's 
oldest institutions.
  ``They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution 
grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the 
Sixth Circuit is reversed.
  ``It is so ordered.''
  These words, Mr. Speaker, were written by Supreme Court Justice 
Anthony Kennedy in his Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, and they embody 
what the LGBT community has pursued for decades: equality under the 
law.

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