Summary: Obergefell V. Hodges

On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across all 50 U.S. states with the ruling of Obergefell v. Hodges. They ruled that under the Fourteenth Amendment (which states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”), same-sex married couples must be recognized as married and no state can

Hodges is about James Obgerfell going against Ohio’s same-sex marriage ban on January 16, 2015 for his deceased partner John Author. Although they were marriage married in Maryland (one of the 36 states where same-sex marriage was legal), when Author later passed away, the couple lived in Ohio and the state of Ohio refused to recognize Obergefell as the “surviving spouse”, denying him the right to inherit what rightful belonged to him now from Author’s passing, a right and benefit typically granted to married couples. Per Oyez (page 2), on April 28, 2015, the plaintiffs argued that the state of Ohio went against the Equal Protection Clause, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, along with the Civil Rights Act. The trial court ended up in favor of the plaintiffs and on June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court made the historic 5-4 decision to legalize same-sex marriage that, in the words put by Garvey (page 1), deeply divided our

To add on, during the Obergefell v. Hodges case, the Supreme Court did mention that the First Amendment did give religious organizations the protection to be able to adhere to their principals but that does not allow states to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples due to religious beliefs. To say that same-sex couples will receive “special rights” once granted the right to marry is incorrect. Once married, they will obtain the same (estimated) 1,000 rights that heterosexual couples obtain once married. As Smucskiewiz puts it (page 1), these rights are in the spectrum of; employment, housing, violence and crime, health care, marriage, and adoption. On the topic of rights, the Fourteenth Amendment has addressed marriage as principals of liberty and equality meaning the Constitution protects the fundamental right to marry; with both heterosexual and homosexual couples. History has showed us that marriage helped stabilize heterosexual couple’s along with same-sex couple’s relationships and that same-sex couples can provide just as loving and protecting of a household for a child as would a heterosexual couple would. Many heterosexual parents raise their children with the same amount of love and care as any heterosexual couple