When Jim Obergefell and his partner John Arthur decided to marry after more than 20 years together, they faced a formidable obstacle: their home state of Ohio refused to recognize same-sex marriages. With John terminally ill, the couple chartered a medical jet to Maryland, where their marriage would be legal.
“The most important thing was I got to take John’s hand and we got to say the words we had wanted to say for so long,” Obergefell said.
Their decision set in motion a legal challenge that reached the Supreme Court in 2015, as Obergefell v. Hodges. The court ruled 5 to 4 that the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause requires all states to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples.
“They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. “The Constitution grants them that right.”
View transcript here.
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