Gay marriage supreme court case name

Jim Obergefell and others sued for recognition of their same-sex marriages, which were legal in the states where they were married but illegal in other states. The denial of marriage impedes many legal rights and privileges, such as adoptions, parental rights, and property transfer.

The Court has long held that marriage is a fundamental right. Here, the Court held that states must allow and recognize same-sex marriages under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. In his majority opinion, Justice Kennedy concluded that the fundamental right to marry cannot be limited to heterosexual couples.

The identification and protection of fundamental rights is an enduring part of the judicial duty to interpret the Constitution. That process is guided by many of the same considerations relevant to analysis of other constitutional provisions that set forth broad principles rather than specific requirements.

History and tradition guide and discipline this inquiry but do not set its outer boundaries. That method respects our history and learns from it without allowing the past alone to rule the present. The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times.

The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.

The four principles and traditions to be discussed demonstrate that the reasons marriage is fundamental under the Constitution apply with equal force to same-sex couples. Like choices concerning contraception, family relationships, procreation, and childrearing, all of which are protected by the Constitution, decisions concerning marriage are among the most intimate that an individual can make.

Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there. It offers the hope of companionship and understanding and assurance that while both still live there will be someone to care for the other. A third basis for protecting the right to marry is that it safeguards children and families and thus draws meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education.

Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. Marriage remains a building block of our national community. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry.

No longer may this liberty be denied to them. No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.

As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves.

They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of gay marriage supreme court case name.

A decade after the U.S. legalized gay marriage, Jim Obergefell says the fight isn't over

In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand marriage to include same-sex couples, or to retain the historic definition. Today, however, the Court takes the extraordinary step of ordering every State to license and recognize same-sex marriage.

Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. Supporters of same-sex marriage have achieved considerable success persuading their fellow citizens—through the democratic process—to adopt their view.