In light of today's historic U.S. Supreme Court
ruling for the legalization of marriage equality across America,
we highlight the outstanding trackrecord of equality
at Abercrombie & Fitch...
#WeAreONE
IN A LANDMARK moment in its 238-year history, on Friday, June 26, 2015, the United States of America became the overall 25th nation/territory in the world to uphold the legality of marriage equality by the defining 5-4 ruling of its Supreme Court over case Obergefell v. Hodges - a greater case which resulted from the consolidation of cases Tanco v. Haslam (Tennessee), DeBoer v. Snyder (Michigan), and Bourke v. Beshear (Kentucky), as one, in challenging marriage equality opposition by various U.S. state laws.
"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it 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 Constitution grants them that right. [...] It is so ordered." - Conclusion to the opinion of the Court, authored and delivered by Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, June 26, 2015
Associate Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Elena Kagan, Anthony Kennedy, and Sonia Sotomayor were the historic majority ruling while Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas made up the dissent.
Furthermore, apart from the powerful historic significance for and within the country, it is a monumental, unprecedented progressive move, for global LGBT rights, by way of the world's most influential force, the United States.
Our Abercrombie & Fitch Co., meanwhile, has been a proud supporter of equality for same-sex couples as now recently having attained a 100-mark score for its 9th consecutive year on the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC, official site) annual Corporate Equality Index (CEI) report - the HRC being the largest, reputable, and most influential of organizations of its kind in the United States.
"We are a proud supporter of the LGBT community and are honored to earn another perfect score on the 2015 Corporate Equality Index. We are committed to embracing diversity in the workplace and are excited to receive this recognition for the ninth consecutive year." – Amy Zehrer, A&F Executive Vice President and new head of Diversity & Inclusion, November 2014
"A&F's efforts," furthered the A&F press release at the time, "in satisfying all of the CEI's criteria results in a 100 percent ranking and the designation as a Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality."
A little more than a week before the historic ruling, on Tuesday, June 16, A&F posted the following video on its @abercrombie Instagram account in honor of supporting LGBT rights and Pride Month...
"We're proud to show our continued support of the #LGBT community.
We'll be rocking these #tees around campus all month long.
#AFPride #PrideMonth #Pride"
After the landmark majority outcome of Obergefell v. Hodges, Abercrombie proudly posted, as a symbolic gesture to the historic moment and its meaning, "Love is love"...
In TSOF Editor-in-Chief C.E.R.'s all-time favorite tune, "A Little Respect" by Erasure (played on the A&F Summer Initial 2010 playlist with the Nivek Tek cover), one of its treasured lines to heart goes, "What religion or reason could drive a man [anyone] to forsake his [/her] lover..." Be you man or woman, your heart belonging to whomever (regardless of their being a man or woman), there should be no one nor nothing telling you and making you feel your love, pure, and union is wrong!
As of now, the legal recognition of same-sex marriage and civil unions has created a polarized global landscape in which it is in standing principally, markedly in the Western world (Western Europe, U.S. and Canada, areas of Latin America, South Africa, and New Zealand) and overwhelmingly nay in Eastern Europe and all of Africa and Asia. The great civil rights fight continues on for equality for all!
Stay FIERCE!