Obergefell v. Hodges (Obergefell) was the recent groundbreaking Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage across the entire United States. There is no doubt Obergefell will go down as one of the most widely known decisions the Supreme Court has made, in fact, Obergefell, broke the record for most amicus curiae briefs filed with the court (Record Number Of Amicus Briefs Filed In Same-Sex-Marriage Cases, April 28, 2015). While I think the case was decided correctly, the Court could have done more to protect the rights of LGBT people, but decided against it.
James Obergefell and John Arthur James were two gay men from the state of Ohio seeking to get married; Obergefell and James travelled to Maryland in 2013 to get married (LGBT Rights on the Docket: Obergefell v. Hodges). Upon return to Ohio, Obergefell and James wanted to file for an Ohio marriage license. This was particularly important because James suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and did doctors did not expect him to live much longer (LGBT Rights on the Docket, n.d.). Obergefell wanted to be recognized as James’ spouse so he would have all the rights of a spouse after James’ death. James died several months into case and did not see the successful outcome (LGBT Rights on the Docket, n.d.). Obergefell and James, and several other plaintiffs that joined the case, filed suit against Richard Hodges in his official capacity as Director of the Ohio Department of health in the Sixth Circuit District Court, claiming that Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional (LGBT Rights on the Docket, n.d.).
Judge Timothy Black of United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ruled that Ohio’s same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional, the same conclusion all lower federal courts had reached on the issue since the Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Windsor (Marriage Rulings in the Courts, Mar. 2, 2015).
Hodges appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in a split decision that Ohio’s gay marriage ban was in fact constitutional. The Sixth Circuit was the first court to reach this conclusion (Marriage Ruling). The majority opinion did not discuss the actual legal merits of the case much at all, in fact the dissent stated that, “The author of the majority opinion has drafted what would make an engrossing TED Talk or, possibly, an introductory lecture in Political Philosophy. But as an appellate court decision, it wholly fails to grapple with the relevant constitutional question in this appeal.” (DeBoer v. Snyder, 43). Truthfully, it seems like the Sixth Circuit may have ruled gay marriage unconstitutional simply to create a split among the circuit courts and make it more likely that the Supreme Court would take the case.
Obergefell appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. The two questions presented to the Supreme Court were, “Whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex”, and “Whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to recognize a same-sex marriage licensed performed in a State which does grant that right.” (Obergefell v. Hodges, United States Supreme Court, 2).
The Supreme Court’s precedent in this area is relatively thin in this area, but there are three cases that could be considered precedent. United States v. Windsor, Loving v. Virginia, and Lawrence v. Texas. Each of these cases, to varying degrees, was used to in the Court’s ruling in Obergefell.
United States v. Windsor (Windsor) is the most analogous case, it was decided in 2013, and set up Obergefell. In Windsor, Edith Windsor, a lesbian widow, who married her spouse in Canada, and New York recognized the marriage. The federal government passed a law recognizing marriage as between a man and a woman, thus they did not recognize Edith Windsor’s marriage. If the United States recognized Windsor’s marriage she would not have to pay any taxes to inherit her spouse’s estate, but because the federal government did not recognized the marriage Windsor was forced to pay $30,000 in taxes (New York Times, June 26, 2014). The Supreme held that the federal law was unconstitutional because it infringed on laws regarding marriage, which have historically been left to the individual states (New York Times, June 26, 2014). The Court also invalidated the law because it violated Windsor’s due process rights, under the Court’s analysis, by refusing to recognize a legal marriage, the federal government was discriminating against Windsor without good reason, and thus is unconstitutional (Scotusblog, June 26, 2013). The Court would rely on this decision heavily in Obergefell.
In Loving v. Virginia the Supreme Court ruled that marriage was a fundamental right and overturned Virginia’s interracial marriage ban.
In Perry v. Hollingsworth , the Supreme Court ruled that homosexual sodomy laws were unconstitutional. Lawrence expressly overturned the case Bowers v. Hardwick which ruled that homosexual sodomy bans were in fact constitutional.
