Justice Kennedy Acknowledges Gay Marriage Controversy

SAN DIEGO -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has acknowledged the controversy surrounding the recent ruling that granted gays and lesbians the right to marry across the nation and likens it to a case in which justices decided burning an American flag is protected free speech.

Kennedy told lawyers and judges at a conference in San Diego on Wednesday that public reaction in the 1989 flag-burning case - also a 5-4 ruling in which he was a swing vote - was highly critical. But he says the public began to see things differently in two or three months.

Kennedy says a lawyer from Ukiah, California, told him that his father, a German prisoner during World War II, was outraged by the flag-burning decision but came around after reading Kennedy's concurring opinion.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will address a group of lawyers and judges less than a month after authoring a decision that says gay and lesbian Americans have the same right to marry as others.

Kennedy's appearance at the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference comes shortly after the nation's highest court put an end to same-sex marriage bans in the 14 states that still maintained them and provided an exclamation point for breathtaking changes in the nation's social norms in recent years.

Kennedy's reading of the ruling elicited tears in the courtroom and led to immediate issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples in states that prohibited them. It was his fourth major opinion in support of gay rights since 1996.

Kennedy wrote that the petitioners respected marriage "so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law."

The 78-year-old appointee of President Ronald Reagan has long been a crucial swing vote on the nine-member curt where four justices are reliable liberals and four others reliably conservative. He usually votes with the conservatives, but he has crossed the partisan divided on certain issues.

Kennedy also joined a 6-3 majority to uphold the nationwide tax subsidies underpinning President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

This story is part of our special report: "Courting Equality". Want to read more? Here's the full list.