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Constitutional Law Keyed to Barnett
Obergefell v. Hodges
Citation:
576 U.S. 644 (2015)Facts
The Petitioners were fourteen same-sex couples from Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee who sought to get married. The petitioners challenged state laws that defined marriage as between a man and a woman and denied them the right to marry (or have their marriage recognized even if it was lawfully performed in another state) as violating the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The named plaintiffs in this case, James Obergefell and John Arthur, were a same-sex couple who wished to get married before Arthur passed away from ALS. The couple were residents of Ohio but wed in Maryland. When Arthur passed away, Ohio did not recognize his marriage to Obergefell and did not recognize Obergefell as Arthur’s surviving spouse on his death certificate.
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