Obergefell v. Hodges

5 Key excerpts on "Obergefell v. Hodges"

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  Controversies in American Federalism and Public Policy

  • Christopher P. Banks, Christopher P. Banks(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Obergefell v. Hodges resolved this disparity in 2015 when it mandated nationwide marriage equality and invalidated Section 2 of DOMA.

  Obergefell v. Hodges—Marriage Equality

  In Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry guaranteed under the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

  It invalidated state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage and further held that no state had the right to refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state. Obergefell put an end to the uncertain status of same-sex marriage once and for all by imposing a nationwide rule. Married same-sex couples could now travel from state to state without fear that their relationship would be nullified when they crossed state lines. They were also entitled to federal benefits regardless of their state of residence.

  The Obergefell decision involved six consolidated cases from four different states: Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. The plaintiffs included sixteen same-sex couples, seven of their children, a surviving same-sex spouse, an adoption agency, and a funeral director. All of the cases presented essentially the same question of law. The plaintiffs argued that the state marriage prohibitions violated the U.S. Constitution. In each case, the state either refused to grant a same-sex couple a marriage license or refused to recognize a marriage performed in another state. The plaintiffs all prevailed at the trial court level. The different federal district courts that heard the cases all ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and invalidated the applicable state law prohibitions on same-sex marriage.114

  The plaintiff in the lead case, Jim Obergefell, became the public face of marriage equality while the case was pending before the Court. As a widower, he had a particularly poignant story to share. When Obergfell’s partner of many years, John Arthur, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), they travelled from Ohio, where they lived, to Maryland, where they could legally marry. By that time, Arthur was extremely frail and had to travel on a medical transport plane. On July 11, 2013, Obergefell and Arthur were married in Baltimore on the tarmac at the airport. Arthur died three months later, and the state of Ohio refused to list Obergefell as his spouse on Arthur’s death certificate. Obergefell sued to be included as surviving spouse on his husband’s death certificate and to have his husband’s status at death recorded as “married.”

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  Social Equity and LGBTQ Rights

  Dismantling Discrimination and Expanding Civil Rights

  • Lorenda A. Naylor(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015).

  Based on these reasons, the U.S. Supreme Court granted marriage equality to same-sex couples. They now have the same rights, protections, benefits, and responsibilities as heterosexual married couples. Unlike the Windsor (2013) ruling, which only applied to states that legalized same-sex marriage, the Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) ruling granted marriage equality in every state across the country; same-sex marriage would be recognized nationwide. Justice Kennedy summarized the decision: “marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death” and that same-sex couples have the right to “equal dignity in the eyes of the law” (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015). The case was a landmark ruling in the LGBTQ rights movement, granting same-sex couples a constitutional right to marriage, recognized in every state across the country.

  Defiance

  Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in 2015, there was resistance and defiance in implementing the new judicial policy. Resistance largely took place in southern states. In Alabama, State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ray Moore initially ordered probate justices to defy the Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) ruling and not to issue same-sex marriage licenses. At least 13 counties refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples ( Jenkins, January 6, 2016; Margolin, January 6, 2016). Several county clerks in the South resigned their positions rather than issue marriage licenses to gay couples (CBS News, 2015; Solomon, 2015). The most well-known case was in Kentucky, where Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis refused to issue marriage licenses due to religious beliefs. Stating she was “operating under God’s authority,” Davis denied marriage licenses in her official capacity as county clerk (Blinnder & Perez-Pena, 2015). The couples sued (Miller v. Davis

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  The SAGE Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Studies

  • Abbie Goldberg(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  The [United States] Constitution simply does not allow for “laws of this sort.” (Perry v. Hollingsworth, 2012, p. 1063) The 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision was both confusing and anticlimactic. It did not mandate nationwide same-sex marriage by finding a fundamental right to same-sex marriage or a violation of Equal Protection as many commentators had predicted. Instead, the Court declined to reach the merits of the case, finding in a 5-to-4 decision that the defendant-intervenor did not have the required appellate standing to defend the case. Without legal standing, Hollingsworth did not meet the constitutional requirement of a “case or controversy,” and the Court was without power to render a decision. The Court returned the case to the Ninth Circuit with instructions to vacate its prior ruling. The result was to reinstate the decision of the District Court and dissolve the stay on same-sex marriages, which then allowed same-sex marriage to begin in California for the second time. Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) Two years later, in 2015, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to revisit the issue of marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges. In a landmark 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry under the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It invalidated state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage and further held that no state had the right to refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state. Obergefell also overturned Baker v. Nelson. As a result of the opinion, marriage equality is now the law in the United States. Obergefell actually involved four consolidated cases from four different states (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee) that all presented substantially the same question of law. In each case, the state had either refused to grant a same-sex couple a marriage license or refused to recognize a marriage performed in another state

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  Conquering the Political Divide

  How the Constitution Can Heal Our Polarized Nation

  • Eric A. Beck(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Author Academy Elite

    (Publisher)

  14: The Legality of Gay Marriage

  I was reminded that it is my obligation not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society, but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided.”431

  —Barack Obama, 2006, as U.S. senator writing in The Audacity of Hope”

  I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.432

  —Barack Obama, November 2, 2008, while a Candidate for President

  I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.433

  —Barack Obama, May 9, 2012, as President of the United States

  On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States (the “Court”) handed down a 5–4 split decision in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, a decision that declared marriage to be a fundamental right that cannot be denied to same-sex couples.434 As many as fourteen previous Court decisions had referred to the idea that a right to marry was fundamental.435 However, the Obergefell decision was the first time the Court declared that such a right would apply as a matter of law to same-sex couples across all fifty states.

  Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in Obergefell, cited the Fourteenth Amendment as a basis for the Court’s decision saying, “there is no lawful basis for a State to refuse to recognize a lawful same-sex marriage performed in another State on the ground of its same-sex character.”436 Kennedy also identified four “principles and traditions” he said demonstrate why same-sex marriage should be considered fundamental. These include:437

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  The Lesbian and Gay Movements

  Assimilation or Liberation?

  • Craig A Rimmerman(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  5 Jilted at the Altar: The Debate over Same-Sex Marriage Equality is a good start, but it is not sufficient. Equality for queers inevitably means equal rights on straight terms, since they are the ones who determine the existing legal framework. We conform—albeit equally—with their screwed-up system. That is not liberation. It is capitulation. —Peter Tatchell Certainly nobody expected that an arrest that night of two gay men for a minor criminal offense would reverberate in American constitutional law, challenging not only the traditional understanding of what makes a family but also the proper role of government in maintaining that understanding. Nobody foresaw the cultural storm that would gather from the events that transpired in a modest second-floor apartment. Nor could anyone have foreseen how a single arrest might expose the deep malignity in a law that was superficially directed at a certain conduct, but that in practice was used to brand an entire group of people as strangers to moral tradition. —Dale Carpenter on the background to Lawrence v. Texas We won and got everything we hoped for. If I had to survive Thea, what a glorious way to do it. —Edith Windsor, the lead plaintiff in the Defense of Marriage Act case, United States v. Windsor T HE FIGHT OVER SAME-SEX MARRIAGE HAS BECOME A CENTRAL ISSUE in the ongoing cultural wars in the United States. Some analysts have argued that gay marriage has replaced abortion as the focal issue of cultural conflict. In recent years, we have seen considerable political and organizing activity on all sides of the same-sex-marriage debate. Conservative activists have marched in Washington and throughout the United States and have flooded the US Senate with letters, telegrams, and e-mails supporting a constitutional ban limiting marriage to heterosexual couples. Lesbian and gay rights activists have also marched, lobbied, and accessed the legal system to challenge state and local laws that prevent them from marrying

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