On 26 June the United States Supreme Court ruled in a landmark decision that the 14th Amendment requires all US states to license marriages between same-sex couples and to recognise all marriages that were lawfully performed out of state.
The case leading to the decision was brought by James Obergefell and John Arthur James who were challenging Ohio State’s refusal to recognise same-sex marriage on death certificates. The plaintiffs were married in the State of Maryland in 2013. They brought the case as they believed Ohio State officials would refuse to include Mr Obergefell as Mr Arthur’s spouse on his death certificate. Mr Arthur died of a terminal illness shortly after the commencement of the litigation.
In December 2013, Judge Black of the Ohio District Court held that the refusal by the State of Ohio to recognise same-sex marriages licensed in other states violated the substantive due process and equal protection rights of the parties to those marriages and was ultimately unconstitutional. The case was subsequently appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In November 2014, the Court of Appeal reversed the decision of the Ohio District Court. The Plaintiff Mr Obergefell appealed this decision to the United States Supreme Court in November 2014.
On granting the right to appeal the decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court joined Mr Obergefell’s case with other cases challenging same-sex marriage restrictions. The Supreme Court ordered that respective plaintiffs address one of two issues in their particular cases. The following issue was at the core of Mr Obergefell’s case: ‘Whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to recognise a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out of state’.
The Supreme Court with a majority of five to four ruled in favour of Mr Obergefell and concluded in the affirmative that the 14th amendment required states to recognise same-sex marriages lawfully licenced in other states. The decision will have an immediate impact across the United States including the unenforceability of the ban on same sex marriage in fourteen states
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who has written all of the Supreme Court’s decisions recognising and expanding gay rights, said the decision was based on the fundamental right to marry and the equality that must be afforded gay Americans. The common theme in the dissenting judgements was that judicial activism on the part of five members of the court had usurped a power that belongs to the people. The judges who dissented said the question was not whether same-sex marriage was a good idea, but who should decide.
Click here to read the Supreme Court Judgment in full.
Click here to read a brief case history.
Click here to read more in the Irish Times.