Recent Supreme Court Rulings Law Essay Research Paper

Recent Supreme Court Rulings
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Recent Supreme Court Rulings
Obergefell v. Hodges was a U.S. Supreme Court case ruling that occurred on June 26, 2015. The Court ruled that state bans on same-sex marriages and failure to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states was unconstitutional. The issues in the case are detailed below.
Summary of the Supreme Court Ruling
Petitioners, a group of same-sex couples, sued four states for denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The states of Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky had laws that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman (Walker, 2020). Obergefell, the named plaintiff, traveled to Maryland to marry his ailing partner. His partner, Arthur, died in Ohio shortly after their marriage. However, since Ohio did not permit same-sex marriages, Obergefell could not be listed as Arthur’s partner on the death certificate. He sued and a federal judge ruled in his favor but the state of Ohio appealed to a higher court and won. The other co-plaintiffs had also filed lawsuits in their home states’ federal district courts. The courts had ruled in favor of the plaintiffs but the four states appealed. All the cases were consolidated in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the decisions of the district courts, declaring that no state has an obligation to license same-sex marriages or recognize any same-sex marriages performed out of state (Krason, 2016). It was from here that Obergefell and the 13 co-plaintiffs took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The plaintiffs or petitioners’ lawsuit against the four states claimed that the denial of the right to marry or failure of their marriages being recognized across state lines violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling in favor of the plaintiffs (Krason, 2016). The Supreme Court determined that the Fourteenth Amendment requires all states to give licenses to same-sex couples and to recognize the legitimacy of same-sex marriages conducted in other states.
Factors Contributing to the Outcome of the Ruling
The reasoning of the Supreme Court is that same-sex marriage is protected under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process clause. The right to marry is protected for all citizens by the Constitution. The four major reasons that give same-sex marriages legitimacy is the fact that everyone has the freedom to make a personal choice on whom to marry, everyone has a right to intimate relationships, all marriages, ...