Obergefell v. Hodges Summary | quimbee.com

In response to some states legalizing same-sex marriage, various states enacted laws and constitutional amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman. When James Obergefell’s (plaintiff) partner, John Arthur, became terminally ill, the pair decided to marry. The couple wed in Maryland, where same-sex marriage was legal. After Arthur died, however, the couple’s home state of Ohio refused to list Obergefell as Arthur’s surviving spouse on the death certificate. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse (plaintiffs), a same-sex couple living in Michigan, adopted three children. Because of a state ban on adoptions by same-sex couples, DeBoer and Rowse could not both be legal parents to their children. Ipje DeKoe and Thomas Kostura (plaintiffs) got married in New York before DeKoe was deployed to Afghanistan with the army reserve. They later moved to Tennessee, which refuses to recognize the union. These and similarly situated plaintiffs separately sued state officials (defendants) charged with enforcing state marriage laws in federal courts in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, alleging violations of their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The district courts found for the plaintiffs in each instance, but the state officials appealed to United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The court of appeals consolidated the cases and reversed, holding that states were under no constitutional duty to license or recognize same-sex marriages. The plaintiffs petitioned the United States Supreme Court for certiorari, which was granted.

[itznellymarie]

it’s so embarrassing that we couldn’t marry who we loved until 2015

[JJunkAFunk]

Violation of the 14th amendment is so gay. Love is love. Homosexuals are awesome.

[queen_of_domination]

I’m a Christian that is here to learn.

[no-bozos]

I'm a staunch conservative and a devout Catholic, and this will probably shock you, but I am not against same-sex marriage on a legal basis.

Marriage, in its legal form, is a simple contract that was traditionally made between legal adults to conjoin their economic assets. Two adults of any sex could do the same thing through the courts through a lengthy, and expensive, process if they chose to as well. As far as the government was concerned there was no legal difference between the two contracts. Except that one costs $10, depending on the state you live in, and took a day to perform, and the other cots THOUSANDS of dollars and took months. Which, in my fair-minded opinion, is discriminatory. So, either make all contracts the same, or not have such contracts at all.

This doesn't mean that I think gay marriages are equal to straight marriages from a moral or societal point of view. After all, two, well educated, perfectly nice, socially responsible, and wealthy, men can have sex with each other until the end of time and a baby will never result from the union. Whereas a drunk, illiterate, hillbilly, heterosexual couple can have sex once and produce six children at once. The mere biological difference set them apart from the outset. "Love" is not love. Human procreation has a different set of rules from affection. You don't feel the same about a person you share a bed with as a person you bare children with.

The normalization of a mental disorder. Great....