Unlike a lot of US history, I actually remember this monumental leap forward in Civil Rights. The Instagram posts with the #lovewins and the elation. I remember the rainbow flags and decided to finally allow gay marriage in all 50 states. I watched it all from 4000 miles away in an airport hotel in Athens with no real understanding of what was happening.
For years leading up to the monumental decision to allow same sex marriage in all 50 states, many states had slowly been lifting their ban on same-sex marriage. Massachusetts was the first state to do so in 2004, more than a decade before the official federal ruling in 2015. California and many other Liberal states legalized the practice before the Federal ruling. Prior to the ruling itself the case the United States V. Windsor overturned the Defense of Marriage Act which prevented the recognition of Same-Sex Marriage at a federal level. Windsor sued the Federal government after her longtime wife died and the government sought to tax her estate because they did not recognize Windsor and her wife as a legal couple. This paved the way for further cases to reach the supreme court and in fact, Obergefell vs Hodges is itself an amalgamation of several different cases.
Plaintiffs in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee sued on the basis of discrimination for two separate issues. One, that many states would not issue same-sex marriage license and two, that many states would not legally recognize a same-sex marriage license from out of state. Ultimately both of these issues would come to the court. Many of these lawsuits actually succeeded in their goal to achieve equality at the local court however 4 of the 6 cases that made it to the circuit court were dismissed. However, the case was once again elevated to judicial review in the Supreme Court where it was retitled under one case Obergfell (one of the plaintiffs) and Hodges (Ohio health director). Here the decision to legalize and recognized same-sex marriage in all 50 states was achieved by a 5-4 decision. Although many hailed the decision as being a major leap forward in civil rights and activism others criticized the ruling for being an example of judicial activism and unconstitutional.
To me, it already seems archaic and bigoted to prohibit two people from marriage simply because of their sexual orientation. It seems that most of the country now agrees, as support for Marriage Equality has reached 67 percent which is up from just 27 percent in 1996.
This is a very interesting post. I think that the legalization of gay marriage is a very important step forward for America. I also liked how you included your personal opinions and recollection of the event.
ReplyDeleteI found your post to be very interesting and informative of the challenges that homosexual couples had to face in terms of marriage rights. When the case came to the Supreme Court, they ruled that the "exclusion of same-sex couples from the right to marry violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment". It's good to see that our constitution recognizes that everybody has the right to marry, and that no state can dictate whether it is or isn't legal.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2014/14-556