Rainbow lights on the White House marked the Supreme Court decision legalising same-sex marriage. Photo / AP
Rainbow lights on the White House marked the Supreme Court decision legalising same-sex marriage. Photo / AP
The US Supreme Court has legalised same-sex marriage ... now the fight for other rights will intensify.
Even though millions of revellers celebrated last week's Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriage was legal throughout the United States - a seismic civil rights case hailed by President Barack Obama as a "victory for America" - lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people still face a tough fight to win full equality.
The ruling, which left the court bitterly divided in a five-four decision, has been challenged by defiant conservatives - including some county clerks who say issuing marriage licences to LGBT couples violates their religious beliefs - and several Republican presidential candidates.
In a broader sense the court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which was based on separate lawsuits filed by couples in Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky and Michigan, is evidence the American experience is becoming more inclusive and that same-sex marriage has moved into the mainstream.
"I would argue that this is perhaps one of the most historic Supreme Court rulings of a generation," says Gregory Angelo, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBT group.
"I think it's one that people in their 20s and 30s will remember for years to come."
But it also remains a potent culture war issue and right-wing Republican presidential candidates damned the verdict as a blow to the separation of powers doctrine.
"I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch," thundered Mike Huckabee. "We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat."
He said the court's ruling "unwrote laws of nature".
Rick Santorum blasted the "five unelected judges" who dared recast marriage, "the foundational unit that binds together our society".
Not to be outdone, Ted Cruz decried "naked and shameless judicial activism", during "some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation's history" - the court also looked favourably at the right's bete noire, Obama's Affordable Care Act - that "undermined the fundamental legitimacy of the US Supreme Court".
Cruz also advocated a constitutional amendment to reverse the court's decision - a less-than-zero likelihood - a stance also taken by Scott Walker.
Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana were tardy lifting bans on same-sex marriage.
Louisiana's attorney-general said the ruling "trampled" state rights, and the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice said it "destroyed the foundation of our country, which is family".
It was an echo of the Old South's resistance to the Civil Rights Act that enfranchised blacks half a century ago.
Others vowed non-violent civil disobedience and said the ruling violated their religious values.
Dissenting justices in the Supreme Court worried the judicial process had been politicised. Chief Justice John Roberts said it was up to legislatures, not courts, to decide the issue. Justice Antonin Scalia, the conservative's conservative, railed against a "judicial putsch" to usurp democracy.
Others saw a dark plot in which marriage equality was a Trojan horse to destroy Christianity.
Seattle deputy police chief Carmen Best was among those celebrating the decision by marching in the city's Pride Parade.
Mainstream candidates were more measured. Jeb Bush affirmed his support for "traditional marriage", but said "we should love our neighbour and respect others". Marco Rubio chastised the court, but said Americans "must abide by the law".
It was a fence-sitting stance focused on political reality.
Same-sex marriage is fine with many younger voters, the ones nominees must capture to win the White House.
Angelo notes that millennials were children in 2003, when a Massachusetts court recognised same-sex marriage as legal.
"Those people have lived all their lives in a country where some states, a growing number of states, recognised marriage equality. They live in a country where it's just a part of everyday life. They don't see what the big deal is."
A Pew Research Centre poll in May found 57 per cent of Americans favoured same-sex marriage. Support was greatest among those without religious affiliations (85 per cent), millennials (73 per cent), Democrats (65 per cent), whites (59 per cent) and Latinos (57 per cent).
States that banned same-sex marriage (43 per cent), blacks (41 per cent), the silent generation (39 per cent) and evangelicals were least supportive.
Meanwhile, marriage between heterosexuals is in decline - the Pew centre says the percentage of Americans "who have never been married is at a historic high", at one-in-five adults over 25, or 42 million people, in 2012, as against one-in-10 in 1960.
The 14 declared Republican candidates face a set of new challenges in a changing world. Rand Paul can support legal marijuana, but he is wary of marriage equality - he resists government intervention "into the religious sphere".
Democrats are more fortunate. In 2008, when Obama beat Hillary Clinton, both kept their distance from the issue.
Clinton's husband, Bill, signed the Defence of Marriage Act, the heterosexual status quo.
Now, Clinton is seeking electoral gold from the rainbow nation - some gay Democratic donors have deep pockets - holding a fund-raiser last month for Gay Pride Month, celebrating the court's verdict as a "historic victory" and issuing a bumper sticker with "H" emblazoned in rainbowcolours.
Meanwhile, LGBT activists are looking towards the next battles, fighting discrimination in the workplace, in housing and in business as they push for protection of their civil rights at federal, state and local levels.
"I think workplace discrimination will be the next [issue] as far as the LGBT movement goes," says Angelo.
He believes the court ruling stood the activist movement "on its head" as only months ago the belief was that workplace equality would have to precede same-sex marriage, as happened in the 36 states that recognised gay marriage before last week.
Clinton came around to same-sex marriage in 2013 - Obama got there in 2012 - and has been criticised as a cynical opportunist.
LGBT advocates will want to see if she puts her money where her mouth is by adopting policies to end discrimination.
She has already made gay rights a campaign plank.
The Democratic frontrunner is also taking pot shots at Republicans, seen as locked into the past on gay rights and issues such as economic inequality and immigration that may be central to the 2016 race for voters who could decide the outcome.
Republicans who touted states' rights as a reason to fly the Confederate flag after nine people were murdered by a white supremacist in South Carolina last month were singled out as being on the wrong side of history.
They may pander to the fringe now, but if Republicans hope to win next year they might consider hoisting the rainbow colours and tacking towards a more inclusive mainstream.
Tying the knot
Who supports same-sex marriage?
57% Americans, according to a Pew Research Centre poll in May
