Justice Kagan officiates same-sex wedding

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan officiated a same-sex wedding on Sunday, a court spokeswoman told The Associated Press.

The ceremony in Maryland for a former law clerk is the first same-sex wedding that Kagan has performed. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor have both performed same-sex weddings in the past.

{mosads}Gay marriage has been a divisive topic at the Supreme Court, as it has been elsewhere in the country.

Last year, Kagan, an Obama appointee, joined the three other reliably liberal justices, along with swing voter Anthony Kennedy, to strike down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which restricted the definition of marriage to a man and a woman. The four reliably conservative justices dissented.

The court could decide as early as this month whether to take up the issue again in the coming session, this time to consider a more sweeping ruling declaring a right to same-sex marriage across the country.

Ginsburg said last week that unless an appeals court allows a gay marriage ban to stand, “there is no need for us to rush” on a Supreme Court ruling.