Outside the Beltway

Ruth Bader Ginsburg To Officiate At Same-Sex Wedding Ceremony

· Friday, August 30, 2013 · 3 comments

Well, this is certainly an historic event:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will officiate at a same-sex wedding this weekend in what is believed to be a first for a member of the nation’s highest court.

Ginsburg will officiate Saturday at the marriage of Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser and John Roberts, a government economist.

“Michael Kaiser is a friend and someone I much admire,” Ginsburg said in a written statement Friday. “That is why I am officiating at his wedding.”

The private ceremony will take place at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a national memorial to President John F. Kennedy. The 80-year-old Ginsburg, an opera lover, is a frequent guest at the center.

Same-sex marriage is legal in the District of Columbia and 13 states.

“I think it will be one more statement that people who love each other and want to live together should be able to enjoy the blessings and the strife in the marriage relationship,” Ginsburg told The Washington Post in an interview.

“It won’t be long before there will be another” performed by a justice. She has another ceremony planned for September.

Good for you, Justice Ginsburg.

FILED UNDER: Law and the Courts, , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Tillman says:
    Friday, 30 August 2013 at 21:52

    This strikes me as a story that would’ve had the same value whether or not it was reported.

    In other words: …so?

  2. RGardner says:
    Saturday, 31 August 2013 at 00:33

    Missing is any context on how often Supreme Court Justices perform weddings.

    I attended a wedding reception last Saturday where the County Superior Court Judge and friend of the groom’s family mentioned it was his first wedding (Been a judge several years, rural county population 20K, but adjacent to counties with 100K and 500K populations – municipal judges more likely to perform weddings). Of interest, wedding was wedding party and immediate family only, then pictures, then 400 folks showed up for the reception – glad I didn’t have the usual wedding photo wait.

  3. OzarkHillbilly says:
    Saturday, 31 August 2013 at 08:38

    @Tillman:

    This strikes me as a story that would’ve had the same value whether or not it was reported.

    In other words: …so?

    True enough, it would have been a lot more newsworthy if the wedding had been performed by Scalia, but still, it is a historical first

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