Obergefell v. Hodges

Obergefell v. Hodges, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5–4) on June 26, 2015, 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 U.S. Constitution.

The two questions presented by the case—the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans (the “marriage question”) and the constitutionality of bans on recognizing same-sex marriages (the “recognition” question)—were among various issues jointly presented in several related cases heard by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in August 2014. In a single opinion issued in November, the panel held (2–1), among other things, that the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Supreme Court’s own precedents were not inconsistent with state laws and constitutional amendments that defined marriage as a legal relation between one man and one woman only or that denied legal effect to same-sex marriages performed out-of-state. The plaintiffs in the cases immediately filed for certiorari with the Supreme Court, which was granted in a consolidated case, Obergefell v. Hodges, in January 2015, limited to the marriage and recognition questions. Oral arguments were heard on April 28.

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Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy asserted that the right to marry is a fundamental right “inherent in the liberty of the person” and is therefore protected by the due process clause, which prohibits the states from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” By virtue of the close connection between liberty and equality, the marriage right is also guaranteed by the equal protection clause, which forbids the states from “deny[ing] to any person…the equal protection of the laws.” Kennedy then argued at length that “the reasons marriage is fundamental,” including its connection with individual liberty, “apply with equal force to same-sex couples.” Such considerations, he concluded, compel the court to hold that “same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry.” His opinion was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. The lead dissenting opinion was written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, both of whom also wrote their own dissents, as did Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.