Supreme Court to hear same-sex marriage case: Obergefell v. Hodges
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| Obergefell v. Hodges | |
| Docket number: 14-556 | |
| Court: United States Supreme Court | |
| Court membership | |
| Chief Justice John G. Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy • Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Steven G. Breyer Samuel Alito • Sonia Sotomayor • Elena Kagan | |
April 27, 2015
By Kelly Coyle
The United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in four same-sex marriage cases from Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Kentucky under the consolidated title Obergefell v. Hodges on April 28, 2015.
This potentially historic case picks up where the 2013 case United States v. Windsor left off. In United States v. Windsor, the court ruled that part of H.R.3396 - the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional but did not address the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. On April 28, the justices will consider whether the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right of same-sex couples to marry in Obergefell v. Hodges. Fred Sainz, vice president of communications at the Human Rights Campaign, the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organization in America, said, "If the Supreme Court decides in favor of full marriage equality, it will be the largest conferral of rights on LGBT people in the history of our country."[1]
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Michael Klarman, a Harvard Law professor and author of Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage, argued that "[t]he Supreme Court will likely rule that the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be admitted to the institution of marriage. In so doing, the Court will have given – as it usually does – the majority of Americans the Constitution that they want. The ruling will be widely hailed as the Brown v. Board of Education of the gay rights movement. Yet, as with Brown, the Court will be reflecting public opinion more than it shaped it. Also as with Brown, the Court will be rendering a decision that would have been nearly inconceivable only a couple of decades before it happened."[3]
Klarman's assertion that the Supreme Court will give "the majority of Americans the Constitution that they want" if they rule in favor of the couples reflects recent public opinion polls about same-sex marriage. Polls conducted by USA Today and The Washington Post with ABC News in April 2015 indicate that six in 10 Americans support same-sex marriage.[4][5] The court is likely to issue a ruling in June 2015.
Petitioner: The couples
When granting them cert on January 16, 2015, the four same-sex marriage cases were consolidated by the Supreme Court under the title Obergefell v. Hodges because it is the lawsuit with the lowest case number.[6][1] The cases are Obergefell v. Hodges (from Ohio), Tanco v. Haslam (from Tennessee), DeBoer vs. Snyder (from Michigan) and Bourke v. Beshear (from Kentucky).
According to Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSBlog, "the couples are not seeking — a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, or, in other words, a new right created especially for same-sex couples, never before recognized in American constitutional history. What they are seeking, they stress, is an equal right to enter the long-standing institution of marriage, with access to that institution being a 'fundamental right.' This simple emphasis on equality of access to an existing right is intended, in the briefs, to support both a right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and inclusion in the existing marriage right as a matter of 'due process' under that same amendment. And, in that sense, this argument is an invitation to the Court not to see what is at issue as a bold plea to fashion a new right out of whole cloth — one of the main arguments made against same-sex marriage."[7]
Respondent: The states
Ohio and Tennessee are defending the right of the states to decide whether or not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Michigan is defending the right of the states to ban same-sex marriage. Kentucky is defending the right to ban same-sex marriage and the right not to recognize same-sex marriage.[8]
The states will argue that "[t]he Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment does not settle the definition of marriage, so that definition is left to the states;" that "[t]he people of the states are engaging in a robust debate about the issue, so the Court should not step in and give marriage a uniform national definition, abruptly ending that debate; and that "[s]tate bans, either on marriage or recognition, were not passed to engage in discrimination, but simply to codify the traditional notion that marriage should be restricted to opposite-sex couples," according to Denniston.[8]
Recent News
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See also
- Obergefell v. Hodges
- Major cases of the Supreme Court October 2014 term
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Amendment XIV, United States Constitution
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Washington Post, "How Jim Obergefell became the face of the Supreme Court gay marriage case," accessed April 20, 2015
- ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Order List," January 16, 2015
- ↑ SCOTUSBlog, "Commentary: The Supreme Court and marriage for same-sex couples — Part II," accessed April 19, 2015
- ↑ USA Today, "Poll: No turning back on gay marriage," accessed April 20, 2015
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Washington Post-ABC News poll April 16-20, 2015," accessed April 23, 2015
- ↑ SCOTUSblog, "Court will rule on same-sex marriage," January 16, 2015
- ↑ SCOTUSblog, "Preview on same-sex marriage — Part I, The couples’ views," accessed April 19, 2015
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 SCOTUSBlog, "Preview on same-sex marriage — Part II, The states’ views," accessed April 21, 2015
