This weekend Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will perform a duty that no member of the highest court in the land has done before; Ginsburg will officiate a same-sex wedding on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.
The wedding will be held at the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., same-sex marriage is legal in the District of Columbia as well as 13 other states. Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center and friend of Ginsburg's, will be marrying John Roberts according to the Associated Press.
"Michael Kaiser is a friend and someone I much admire," Ginsburg said in a statement. "That is why I'm officiating at his wedding."
This past June the Supreme Court made a landmark decision when they decided to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act. The court ruled that DOMA's main purpose was to "demean those persons who are in a lawful same-sex marriage," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the 5-4 majority that included Ginsburg, according to USA Today.
The effects of the ruling could be felt earlier this week when the Internal Revenue Service announced that legally married gay couples would be able to file federal taxes jointly regardless of whether the state they resided in recognized same-sex marriage.
Now that the court has ruled on same-sex marriage it will no longer appear to be a conflict of interest for a member of the Supreme Court to officiate in a ceremony, in an interview with the New Yorker in March Ginsburg spoke about how those worries prevented people from asking justices to officiate same-sex ceremonies in the past.
"I don't think anybody's asking us, because of these cases," Ginsburg said. "No one in the gay-rights movement wants to risk having any member of the court be criticized or asked to recuse. So I think that's the reason no one has asked me."
Kaiser told the Associated Press that while it was an honor to have a Supreme Court justice officiate his wedding it was just as important to have a friend perform the ceremony.
"It's very meaningful mostly to have a friend officiate, and then for someone of her stature, it's a very big honor," Kaiser said. "I think that everything that's going on that makes same-sex marriage possible and visible helps to encourage others and to make the issue seem less of an issue, to make it just more part of life."
