A new Reuters poll finds that 63% of Republicans oppose the Supreme Court’s backing of gay marriage, which gives hope for conservative presidential candidates who have come out strongly against marriage equality.

“When asked in general whether they support allowing same-sex couples to marry, 51% of Americans say they do, while 35 percent oppose it. Forty-eight percent of independent voters back gay marriage, making it difficult for a conservative Republican to win general election votes on the issue.”

During a debate over the Confederate flag, South Carolina state Sen. Lee Bright (R) lost it over “this gay marriage thing” which he said would cause us to be “one nation gone under,” according to Gawker.

Said Bright: “We can rally together and talk about a flag all we want, but the devil is taking control of this land and we’re not stopping him!”

Conservative pundit S.E. Cupp: “It’s hard not to watch that and get emotional. Those people there are not pariahs, they’re patriots.”

She added: “And so for my party — which I deeply, deeply love — my party really has to reconcile with the fact that we are going to become relics if we don’t get to where these people are.”

“Across the country, among people of all ages and religions, the acceptance of same-sex marriage has grown with stunning speed. But not in the leadership of the Republican Party,” the New York Times reports.

“There is a striking unanimity among the candidates who are running for the party’s presidential nomination in 2016: Not one supports allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. And after the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a right to marriage for all couples, regardless of their sexual orientation, the degree of difference among the candidates was largely a matter of how aggressively they would continue to resist.”

“Within hours of the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, gay couples were exercising what the justices said is their constitutional right to marry in states that have long denied them. Of the 14 states where such unions were illegal prior to the ruling, all but two have allowed marriages to proceed,” the Washington Post reports.

“In Louisiana, the attorney general’s office said in a statement that it found ‘nothing in today’s decision that makes the Court’s order effective immediately.’ There have not yet been reports that same-sex marriage licenses have been granted anywhere in the state. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood instructed residents that the Supreme Court decision doesn’t yet apply to the state because Mississippi is entangled in a legal order from an ongoing gay marriage lawsuit.”

“In a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a nationwide right to same-sex marriage,” the New York Times reports.

“The 5-to-4 decision, the culmination of decades of litigation and activism, came against the backdrop of fast-moving changes in public opinion, with polls indicating that most Americans now approve of same-sex marriage. As in earlier civil rights cases, the Supreme Court had moved cautiously and methodically, laying careful judicial groundwork for a transformative decision.”

Wall Street Journal: “The opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy caps a rapid shift in legal and societal acceptance of same-sex marriage over the past decade. It also marks a revolution in American society, one that in the course of a generation saw gay rights move to the front line from the fringes of a national debate over the meaning of equality.”