Yorktown Couple Reacts to Supreme Court Ruling DOMA Unconstitutional

Two years after Gary Porto and his partner Ruben Santiago tied the knot in front of dozens of friends and family at Yorktown Town Hall, the couple had another reason to celebrate on Wednesday. 

"Today was a great day," Porto said of the 5-4 decision by the United State Supereme Court that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is Unconstitutional.

"In my 61 years of feeling isolated and ashamed, it was a step in the right direction to recognize my personhood and my marriage," he said. "I never in my lifetime thought this would happen."

DOMA, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, kept the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages that had been legalized by the states. With DOMA in place, same-sex married couples in New York were not eligible for federal benefits available to heterosexual married couples.

Porto and Santiago met more than three decades and for the two decades they have shared a home in Yorktown. They were the first gay couple to be married in Yorktown in 2011. Porto said he received a text message from Santiago about the ruling Wednesday morning and got emotional.

"[It's] a day I'll always remember," he said. "I'm still shaking from it."

Porto called the decision "bittersweet" and "huge social step" that was "long overdue." Santiago said they both are "elated."

"It just changes everything," Porto said. "I'm proud that my country has finally done the right thing."

Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy, Rtuh Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan voted in the majority to declare DOMA unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonio Scalia and Samuel Alito all filed dissenting opinions. 

"The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimated purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity," Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. "By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statue is in violation of the Fifth Amendment."

United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) spoke out in support of the Supreme Court ruling Wednesday.

"This is a historic day for our country on its long march towards upholding the fundamental values this country was founded upon of fairness, equality and justice," Gillibrandsaid. "I am overjoyed the Supreme Court has ruled to end the descrimination that had been enshrined into U.S. law."

Gillibrand said there is still work to be done on the federal level regarding DOMA.

"Now that the Supreme Court has ruled DOMA is unconstitutional, Congress must do its job and get this corrosive law off the books so there is certainty for all loving committed couples across state lines," Gillibrand said. "I promise to work hard to pass the REspect for Marriage Act and finally put the discriminatory DOMA policy into the dustbin of history where it belongs."

Ryan Buncher contributed to this report.

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