576 U.S. 644 (2015)
The petitioners were fourteen same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners were deceased. They lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. Those states defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman under their constitutions and statutes.1
The petitioners filed suits in federal district courts in their home states. They sought marriage licenses or recognition of marriages lawfully performed elsewhere.2 James Obergefell and John Arthur traveled from Ohio to Maryland to marry aboard a medical transport plane because Arthur suffered from ALS; Obergefell later sought to be listed as surviving spouse on Arthur's death certificate.3 April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, Michigan nurses, adopted three children but could not both serve as legal parents under state adoption rules.4 Army Reserve Sergeant Ijpe DeKoe and Thomas Kostura married in New York before DeKoe's deployment to Afghanistan and later settled in Tennessee.5
Each district court ruled in the petitioners' favor. The respondents appealed. The Sixth Circuit consolidated the cases and reversed the district court judgments. The petitioners sought certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted.6
Same-sex couples had begun establishing families after substantial cultural and political developments in the late twentieth century. Earlier litigation had addressed the legal status of gays and lesbians, including challenges that reached the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas.7
Whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?8
The fundamental liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause extend to intimate choices defining personal identity and beliefs.9 The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person because it is inherent in individual autonomy, supports a two-person union unlike any other, safeguards children and families, and is a keystone of the social order. The Equal Protection Clause reinforces this protection by prohibiting laws that deny same-sex couples the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples.10
Yes. The petitioners, fourteen same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners were deceased, lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, states that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman.11
James Obergefell and John Arthur traveled from Ohio to Maryland to marry aboard a medical transport plane because Arthur suffered from ALS, yet Ohio refused to list Obergefell as surviving spouse on Arthur's death certificate.12 April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, Michigan nurses, adopted three children but could not both serve as legal parents under state adoption rules, leaving their family without full legal protections.13
Army Reserve Sergeant Ijpe DeKoe and Thomas Kostura married in New York before DeKoe's deployment to Afghanistan and later settled in Tennessee, where their marriage received no recognition.14 These denials burden the liberty of same-sex couples by denying them the constellation of benefits linked to marriage and imposing stigma of knowing their families are lesser.15 The states' arguments based on procreation and tradition do not justify the exclusion, as the right to marry has evolved over time and does not require procreative capacity, as shown by precedents protecting married couples who do not or cannot have children.16
The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex.17
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Scalia And Thomas, Jj.
Chief Justice Roberts dissented on the ground that the majority's decision constitutes an act of will rather than legal judgment.18 The right to marry has never been understood to include same-sex couples.19 The Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage.20
He argued that the majority's approach lacks basis in principle or tradition and improperly removes the issue from the people acting through their elected representatives.21 The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage.22 A State's decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational.23
Joined by Thomas, J.
Justice Scalia dissented on the ground that the Supreme Court has no power to decide this case.24 The Constitution does not give the Court authority to determine whether same-sex marriage is a good idea.25 The people of the States retain that authority for themselves.26
He contended that the majority's decision is an act of will not legal judgment that robs the People of the freedom to govern themselves.27 This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.28
Whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State?29
Once same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry in all States under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, 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.30 The recognition bans inflict substantial and continuing harm by creating instability and uncertainty for couples who travel or reside across state lines.31
Yes. The petitioners included couples such as Obergefell and Arthur whose Maryland marriage Ohio would not recognize on the death certificate and DeKoe and Kostura whose New York marriage Tennessee stripped from them upon return from deployment.32
These recognition bans promote instability because even ordinary travel risks severe hardship, such as denial of hospital access or survivor benefits during a spouse's medical emergency.33 With no lawful basis remaining once the right to marry is established nationwide, the states' refusal to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages violates the Fourteenth Amendment.34
The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.35
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Scalia, J.
Justice Thomas dissented on the ground that the majority's decision is at odds with the Constitution because liberty under the Due Process Clause has long been understood as freedom from government action rather than an entitlement to government benefits.36 He argued that petitioners were not deprived of liberty because they remained free to cohabitate and raise their children in peace.37
The majority inverts the relationship between the individual and the state by treating dignity as something the government bestows.38 The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.39
Joined by Scalia And Thomas, Jj.
Justice Alito dissented on the ground that the Constitution leaves the question of same-sex marriage to the people of each State because the right is not deeply rooted in the Nation's history and tradition.40 He contended that the majority's understanding of marriage focuses on emotional fulfillment rather than the traditional link to procreation.41 The decision will have wide-ranging implications for religious liberty by imposing a new orthodoxy.42
The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.43