Before lunch on Friday the United States Supreme Court ruled state bans on same-sex marriages were unconstitutional, enshrining gay marriage into law across America.
As Justice Anthony Kennedy read his majority opinion from the bench a crowd outside exploded with joy. Hundreds sang, danced, hugged and wept.
Among them was Carman Guzman, who was celebrating with Ikeita Cantu, whom she had married in 2009 in Canada as they could not in their home state of Virginia.
Standing on the front steps of the court holding a sign reading, "Not just gay…. Ecstatic" she said, "We've always had human dignity, we have always had these rights, but today our dignity was honoured."
High above her, carved into the court's stone façade, were the words "Equal Justice Under Law."
Nearby the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington DC broke into a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, America's national anthem.
A member of the chorus, David Baker, 26, who grew up in a devout Mormon family in Salt Lake, said the rapid change in American attitudes to gay marriage – from overwhelming opposition to about 60 per cent support since 2001, depending on which poll you consider – to the courageous decision of many gays to come out.
When a majority of Americans discovered they knew gay people, their intolerance began to fade, he said.
When he came out members of his family told him he would go to hell. They have since reconciled.
Massachusetts was the first American state to recognise gay marriage just 11 years ago. Since then it has spread rapidly. Before Friday's decision an estimated 70 per cent of marriages lived in states that recognised gay marriage.
Justice Kennedy wrote in the conclusion of his opinion, "No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family.
"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 civilisation's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."
Four justices dissented, including the arch conservative Antonin Scalia, who wrote savagely of the decision, "Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality (whatever that means) were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie. Expression, sure enough, is a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say."
Just the previous day Justice Scalia had angrily dissented when the court ruled in favour of Obamacare.
The two huge victories for progressive forces in America's ongoing culture war seemed too much for some of the conservative field running for the White House.
The former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a pastor and presidential hopeful, rejected the ruling outright.
"I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat," he said.
His point of view was echoed by a group of Michigan Catholic Bishops, who issued a statement saying, "The Supreme Court's decision to redefine marriage will have a significant ripple effect upon the first amendment right to religious liberty.
"It sets the Church's teaching about marriage in opposition to the law and will create inestimable conflicts between the state and religious persons and institutions. As the impact of the decision plays out over the coming weeks and months, the Catholic Church will continue to preach the truth about marriage and will promote, in the public square, this truth as what is good for society and our world."
Hillary Clinton, who had once addressed the Senate opposing gay marriage, celebrated the ruling, but said more needed to be done to ensure the rights of all Americans.
"While we celebrate today, our work won't be finished until every American can not only marry, but live, work, pray, learn and raise a family free from discrimination and prejudice. We cannot settle for anything less," she said.
Addressing the nation from the White House, President Barack Obama also celebrated the ruling.
"Our nation was founded on a bedrock principal that we are all created equal," he said. "The project of each generation is to bridge the meaning of those founding words with the realities of changing times.
"Progress on that journey often comes in small increments … And then sometimes there are days like this, when that slow steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt."
