Court case legalizing gay marriage

A decade after the U.S. legalized gay marriage, Jim Obergefell says the clash isn't over

Over the past several months, Republican lawmakers in at least 10 states have introduced measures aimed at undermining same-sex marriage rights. These measures, many of which were crafted with the help of the anti-marriage equality group MassResistance, search to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell.

MassResistance told NBC News that while these proposals face backlash and wouldn’t transform policy even if passed, keeping opposition to same-sex marriage in the universal eye is a win for them. The group said it believes marriage laws should be left to states, and they doubt the constitutional basis of the 5-to-4 Dobbs ruling.

NBC News reached out to the authors of these articulate measures, but they either declined an interview or did not respond.

“Marriage is a right, and it shouldn’t trust on where you live,” Obergefell said. “Why is queer marriage any distinct than interracial marriage or any other marriage?”

Obergefell’s journey to becoming a leader for same-sex marriage rights

Obergefell v. Hodges ()

Excerpt: Majority Opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy

The identification and protection of fundamental rights is an enduring part of the judicial duty to interpret the Constitution. That responsibility, however, “has not been reduced to any formula.” Rather, it requires courts to exercise reasoned judgment in identifying interests of the person so fundamental that the State must accord them its respect. . . . That process is guided by many of the equal considerations relevant to analysis of other constitutional provisions that set forth broad principles rather than specific requirements. History and tradition guide and discipline this inquiry but act not set its outer boundaries. That method respects our history and learns from it without allowing the past alone to verb the present.

The nature of injustice is that we may not always watch it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to recognize the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a

Obergefell v. Hodges

Overview

Obergefell v. Hodges is a landmark case in which on June 26, , the Supreme Court of the United States held, in decision, that state bans on same-sex marriage and on recognizing same sex marriages duly performed in other jurisdictions are unconstitutional under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy asserted that the right to unite is a fundamental right “inherent in the liberty of the person” and is therefore protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits the states from depriving any person of “life, liberty or property without the due process of law.” The marriage right is also guaranteed by the equal protection clause, by virtue of the close connection between liberty and equality. In this decision Justice Kennedy also declared that “the reason marriage is fundamental…apply with equal force to same-sex couples”, so they may “exercise the fundamental right to marry.”  The majority decision wa

​Obergefell v. Hodges

Same-sex marriage has been controversial for decades, but tremendous progress was made across the United States as states individually began to lift bans to same-sex marriage.  Before the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges,  U.S. ___ () was decided, over 70% of states and the District of Columbia already recognized same-sex marriage, and only 13 states had bans.  Fourteen same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners had since passed away, claimed Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee violated the Fourteenth Amendment by denying them the right to marry or contain their legal marriages performed in another state recognized. 

All district courts found in favor of the plaintiffs.  On appeal, the cases were consolidated, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and held that the states' bans on same-sex marriage and refusal to recognize legal same-sex marriages in other jurisdictions were not unconstitutional.  

Among several arguments, the respondents asserted that the petitioners were