The Human Rights Campaign is gearing up for the decision from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding same-sex marriage. They are offering a chance to sign a petition saying you support same-sex marriage. Love Can’t Wait…please sign this petition and stand on the right side of history!
The oral arguments ended today around 12:30pm in the Supreme Court. Both sides of the arguments gave their views and answered tough questions by the justices. The ruling won’t be handed down until June, but there was a festive air outside of the Supreme Court, where supporters of Gay Marriage outnumbered the opposition. A shift has happned in our country and it’s apparent. Now, hopefully when the ruling is issued, love will win. Love must win. Love can’t wait.
Here’s some information about today’s case Obergefell v. Hodges: (from Wikipedia):
A Cincinnati, Ohio, same-sex couple filed a lawsuit, Obergefell v. Kasich, in the U.S. Southern District of Ohio on July 19, 2013, alleging that the state discriminates against same-sex couples who have married lawfully out-of-state. Because one partner, John Arthur, was terminally ill and suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), they wanted the Ohio Registrar to identify the other partner, James Obergefell, as his surviving spouse on his death certificate based on their July 11, 2013, Maryland marriage. The local Ohio Registrar agreed that discriminating against the same-sex married couple is unconstitutional, but the state Attorney General’s office announced plans to defend Ohio’s same-sex marriage ban.
On July 22, 2013, District Judge Timothy S. Black granted the couple’s motion, temporarily restraining the Ohio Registrar from accepting any death certificate unless it recorded the deceased’s status at death as “married” and his partner as “surviving spouse”. Black wrote that “[t]hroughout Ohio’s history, Ohio law has been clear: a marriage solemnized outside of Ohio is valid in Ohio if it is valid where solemnized” and noted that certain marriages between cousins or minors, while unlawful if performed in Ohio, are recognized by the state if legal when solemnized in other jurisdictions. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine indicated he would not appeal the preliminary order.
On August 13, 2013, Black extended the temporary restraining order until the end of December and scheduled oral arguments on injunctive relief, which is permanent, for December 18. On September 25, Black granted a motion by the plaintiffs to dismiss the governor and the state attorney general as defendants. The health department director was substituted as the lead defendant, and the case changed to Obergefell v. Wymyslo. On October 22, plaintiff John Arthur died. The state defendants moved to dismiss the case as moot. Judge Black, in an order dated November 1, denied the motion to dismiss. On December 23, 2013, Judge Black ruled that Ohio’s refusal to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions was discriminatory and ordered Ohio to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions on death certificates. He wrote: “When a state effectively terminates the marriage of a same-sex couple married in another jurisdiction, it intrudes into the realm of private marital, family, and intimate relations specifically protected by the Supreme Court”.
A second case, Henry v. Wymyslo, was progressing before Judge Black at the same time as Obergefell. On February 10, 2014, in Henry v. Wymyslo, four same-sex couples legally married in other states sued to force the state to list both parents on their children’s birth certificates. Three of the couples were women living in Ohio, each anticipating the birth of a child later in 2014. The fourth was a male couple living in New York with their adopted son who was born in Ohio in 2013. While this lawsuit was pending, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to ask the court to declare Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Judge Black gave the state time to prepare its appeal of his decision by announcing on April 4 that he would issue an order on April 14 requiring Ohio to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. Following the resignation of the lead defendant, Ohio’s director of health, Ted Wymyslo, for reasons unrelated to the case, Lance Himes became interim director and the case was restyled Henry v. Himes. On April 14, Black ruled that Ohio must recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions, and on April 16 stayed enforcement of his ruling except for the birth certificates sought by the plaintiffs.
DeWine appealed Obergefell to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. On February 14, the plaintiffs asked the Sixth Circuit to set an expedited schedule for briefing and argument as the Ninth and Tenth Circuits had done in similar cases, and the Sixth Circuit did so, with the case restyled Obergefell v. Himes with Ohio’s new, interim health director as lead-named appellant. On May 20, the Sixth Circuit consolidated this case with Henry v. Himes for the purpose of briefing and oral argument. The Sixth Circuit heard oral arguments on August 6.
On November 6, 2014, the Sixth Circuit ruled 2–1 that Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage does not violate the U.S. Constitution. It said it was bound by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1972 action in a similar case, Baker v. Nelson, which dismissed a same-sex couple’s marriage claim “for want of a substantial federal question”. Writing for the majority, Judge Jeffrey Sutton also dismissed the arguments made on behalf of same-sex couples in this case: “Not one of the plaintiffs’ theories, however, makes the case for constitutionalizing the definition of marriage and for removing the issue from the place it has been since the founding: in the hands of state voters.” Dissenting, Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey wrote: “Because the correct result is so obvious, one is tempted to speculate that the majority has purposefully taken the contrary position to create the circuit split regarding the legality of same-sex marriage that could prompt a grant of certiorari by the Supreme Court and an end to the uncertainty of status and the interstate chaos that the current discrepancy in state laws threatens.”
On November 14, the same-sex couples filed an application for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. They asked the court to consider whether Ohio’s refusal to recognize marriage from other jurisdictions violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection, and whether the state’s refusal to recognize the adoption judgment of another state violates the U.S. Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit clause.
On January 16, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court consolidated this case with three other same-sex marriage cases, Tanco v. Haslam (Tennessee), DeBoer v. Snyder (Michigan), Bourke v. Beshear (Kentucky), that challenge either a state’s refusal to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions or a state’s refusal to license same-sex marriages, or both.
So that’s where we are. It’s the time for love. If you’d like to, you can listen to the audio from today’s oral arguments. They are broken down by the two questions posed in the case:
Question 1: Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?
AUDIO
Question 2: Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?
AUDIO
Modern Day Stonewall 