Good morning. Our nation was founded on a bedrock principle that we are all

created equal. The project of each generation is to bridge the meaning of those

founding words with the realities of changing times.

A never ending quest to ensure those words ring true for every single American.

It was only a couple years ago on a warm day in June 2015 that President Obama gave

this address in the White House Rose Garden.

Just hours earlier, people were crowded in front of the marble steps of the Supreme Court building,

waiting for a decision to emerge from its hall.

Progress on this journey often comes in small increments.

Sometimes two steps forward, one step back,

propelled by the persistent effort of dedicated citizens.

They were chanting, love is love, waiting for the decision in the case Obergaphel versus Hodges,

which would determine whether state bans on same-sex marriage violate the Constitution.

At 10 a.m., new staffers came bolting out of the doors down the steps of the Supreme Court,

waving the thick packet of the ruling.

And then sometimes there are days like this.

When that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice.

It arrives like a thunderbolt.

This morning, the Supreme Court recognized that the Constitution guarantees marriage equality.

This was the second major marriage decision that the Supreme Court had ever handed down.

The first was in 1967, when the Court declared that interracial marriage was constitutional.

In the landmark case of loving versus Virginia.

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