Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion legalizing same

By Joan Biskupic, CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst

Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the Supreme Court’s 2015 opinion declaring a right to same-sex marriage , recalled on Wednesday one of the poignant realities that influenced him – and why he believes the decision would never be overturned.

“A large part of the reasoning in the opinion, and the background of the opinion, was that I had not known how many children were adopted by parents” who were gay or lesbian, Kennedy said during an interview with CNN in his chambers. “At first, I thought there were 75,000 children or so. It’s in the hundreds of thousands.”

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The court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges was rooted in Four