Obergefell << OH burg uh fehl >> v. Hodges was a 2015 landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples. The court based its decision on both the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States . Before Obergefell v. Hodges, a number of U.S. states prohibited same-sex marriages.
The case name comes from James Obergefell and Richard Hodges, the parties in the suit. In 2013, Obergefell and his partner of 22 years, John Arthur, both residents of Ohio , traveled to Maryland to marry. Maryland allowed same-sex marriages. Ohio did not. Upon their return to Ohio, Obergefell and Arthur learned that the state would not recognize their marriage as being valid. Arthur, who was fatally ill, would not be allowed to have Obergefell listed as his surviving spouse on his death certificate. Consequently, Obergefell sued the state of Ohio for discrimination against same-sex couples. Richard Hodges was the director of the Ohio Department of Health. He took office as health director in August 2014 and took over the state’s appeal of an initial district court ruling in Obergefell’s favor.
In January 2014, Obergefell’s case—combined with several other district court decisions that found bans on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional—was appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court, one of the 13 circuit courts of the United States Courts of Appeals . Each circuit covers a specific geographical area. In November, the Sixth Circuit found same-sex marriage bans to be constitutional. This produced a split among the circuit courts, some of which had previously found similar bans unconstitutional. This split prompted the U.S. Supreme Court review.
In June 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 5–4 decision that the 14th Amendment requires all states to grant same-sex marriages and recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, which stated that the fundamental liberties protected by the due process clause “extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity and beliefs”—an extension that includes a fundamental right to marry. The majority opinion also stated that same-sex marriage bans violated the amendment’s equal protection clause, which prohibits states from denying “the equal protection of the laws.”
