This week, The New York Times recognized the importance of Justice Anthony Kennedy in the forward march of equality for the LGBT. Kudos to this wise Republican judge

Surprising Friend of Gay Rights in a High PlaceBy Adam Liptik 

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sang “Give ’Em Hope” for a revered and in some ways surprising guest who shared a California stage with them last month: Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. 

Justice Kennedy was in San Francisco for an American Bar Association meeting, but he was also there to be celebrated by the men on the risers behind him. In remarks from the stage, San Francisco’s mayor, Edwin M. Lee, thanked the justice “for upholding the Constitution and justice for all” in his majority opinion in June in United States v. Windsor, a major gay rights victory. 

“Freedom is always a work in progress,” Justice Kennedy said in his own remarks, making clear that there was more work to be done.  

Justice Kennedy has emerged as the most important judicial champion of gay rights in the nation’s history, having written three landmark opinions on the subject, including this summer’s Windsor decision, which overturned a ban on federal benefits for married same-sex couples. Those rulings collectively represent a new chapter in the nation’s civil rights law, and they have cemented his legacy as a hero to the gay rights movement.“He is the towering giant in the jurisprudence of freedom and equality for gay people,” said Evan Wolfson, the president of Freedom to Marry and one of the architects of the political and legal push for same-sex marriage. 

That push has taken on momentum thanks to the Windsor decision, which gay rights groups are citing in challenges to state bans on same-sex marriage. On Thursday, the Internal Revenue Service said it would implement the Windsor ruling by recognizing the unions of all lawfully married same-sex couples, including those living in states that do not allow same-sex marriage. 

On Saturday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who joined Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in Windsor, became the first member of the court to officiate at a same-sex wedding. 

The praise now being showered on Justice Kennedy by gay rights advocates — and the deep disappointment of conservatives — would have been hard to imagine when President Ronald Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court in 1987. Gay rights groups were more than a little wary then.

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