U.S. Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage

WASHINGTON – For generations to come, the decision will be known as Obergefell, the last name of the man first listed on the series of cases that Friday brought down same-sex marriage bans across the U.S.

But as much as it was Jim Obergefell's, this was a case about a pair of Hazel Park nurses with four adopted children between them and worries that, under Michigan law, they could never be a true legal family and could never be certain that the death of one parent or the other -- if it came to that -- wouldn't split up their clan like it never existed.

Since 2012, April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse have waged a time-consuming and expensive battle against a ban enacted by 59% of Michigan's voters 11 years ago. And writing for the 5-4 majority Friday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy found in their favor -- citing them personally -- in a ruling that swept away as unconstitutional same-sex marriage bans across the nation.

"I guess now we have to plan a wedding," said DeBoer as celebrations of gay and lesbian rights advocates and their supporters erupted across the country. In Michigan and elsewhere, sympathetic civil officials began ceremonies almost immediately with more expected to follow suit in the days to come.

Prior to Friday, same-sex marriages were permitted in 37 states and Washington, D.C., though in most cases it was through court decisions which could have been reversed if the Supreme Court had upheld bans in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee in the consolidated cases before it.

Instead, even Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette -- whose office had defended the ban before the Supreme Court as a proper exercise of state authority -- acknowledged that the court's 5-4 decision, despite deep concerns raised by conservative legislators and religious groups, represented "the final word."

"The United States Supreme Court has spoken in an opinion that I think is quite clear, that same-sex marriage is legal. .... I don't think there's any other additions that you can make to this," Schuette said.

President Barack Obama, speaking from the White House, called it not only a victory for gay and lesbian couples and their families, who "will now be recognized as equal to any others," but a "victory for America." In Lansing, Gov. Rick Snyder — who was listed as the defendant in DeBoer and Rowse's case — said it was "important for everyone to respect the judicial process and the decision today.

"Our state government will follow the law and our state agencies will make the necessary changes to ensure that we will fully comply," he said in a statement.

The ruling is not just about marriage: by sanctioning marriages everywhere, it guarantees Social Security survivor benefits for same-sex partners, paves the way for couples to adopt and secures rights for spouses to make medical decisions for one another.

And DeBoer and Rowse, who celebrated the decision with lawyers and their supporters in Ann Arbor, were central to the outcome.

"If an emergency were to arise, schools and hospitals may treat (their) children as if they had only one parent," wrote Kennedy, taking note of Michigan's law prohibiting cross-adoptions by unmarried couples. "And, were tragedy to befall either DeBoer or Rowse, the other would have no legal rights over the children she had not been permitted to adopt. This couple seeks relief from the continuing uncertainty their unmarried status creates in their lives."

"Without the recognition, stability and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant material costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life," Kennedy said. "The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples."

And with that, the court followed through on a series of legal decisions that began in 2003 with the Lawrence decision that struck down a sodomy law and continued, in 2013, with another decision by Kennedy stripping the federal government of any authority to discriminate between same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

Kennedy said state-based, same-sex marriage bans violate constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law.

"It demeans gays and lesbians for the state to lock them out of a central institution of the nation's society," he wrote. "Same-sex couples, too, may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage and seek fulfillment in its highest meaning."

But Kennedy's decision, while a landmark ruling for civil rights effort, didn't end the debate.

Religious officials and same-sex marriage opponents in Lansing and elsewhere were expected to try to enact laws to blunt the ruling, though it was unclear such measures, if passed, would be effective, with the court guaranteeing couples — regardless of gender — a right to marry, and children a right for their families to be recognized.



But the disappointment in some quarters was clear: The Michigan Republican Party called the decision "unfortunate." The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called it a "tragic error that harms the common good" and intimated it will lead to more litigation.

"It is profoundly immoral and unjust for the government to declare that two people of the same sex can constitute a marriage," the bishops said.

In Washington, some Republican lawmakers said steps could be needed to ensure that religious-based institutions, including schools, wouldn't be forced to violate their beliefs. And in Michigan, some conservative legislators had already been discussing laws that could attempt to curtail same-sex marriages, though they were far from certain of passing legislative or constitutional muster.





Some states were looking at plans that would allow local civil officials to opt out of performing ceremonies, though the legality of such a proposal — or of those, like one in Michigan, which would try to turn all wedding ceremonies over to clergy — carried deep constitutional doubts.

Religious personnel would not be required to perform any marriage ceremony against their beliefs, however, because their rights are enshrined in the First Amendment.

Kennedy was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in his decision. Mary Bonauto, the lawyer who represented DeBoer and Rowse before the Supreme Court, appeared on the court's plaza where gay rights supporters thronged. She said no single ruling could solve all discrimination, "but this can go a long way in helping people discover their common humanity."

Kennedy — who had been expected to write the decision and determine the outcome of the case from the beginning — delivered a sweeping civil rights decision that said religious objections to same-sex marriage may be "decent" and "honorable," but can't be enshrined in public policy that "demeans" or "stigmatizes" others and remain constitutional.

He acknowledged that the traditional definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman has a long history and that it is only somewhat recently that a move toward expanding that definition in the law had begun. But, he said, the Founding Fathers "did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all its dimensions" and that the "nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times."

The decision deeply split the court, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissenting -- each writing a separate dissent.

"Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not," Roberts wrote in a scathing dissent, agreeing with Schuette's office that defining marriage was a right for the states, not the federal courts. "The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a state change its definition of marriage."

"In short," Roberts continued, "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."

Scalia said the majority opinion was effectively a "judicial Putsch," adding, "Today's decree says that my ruler, and the ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court."

In March 2014, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman in Detroit ruled in favor of DeBoer and Rowse. At that time, more than 300 same-sex couples were able to marry in Michigan before Schuette got a stay to appeal -- DeBoer and Rowse, intent on keeping their challenge alive, were not among the couples who got married then.

Friedman's ruling was overturned in November by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, putting it in conflict with several other federal courts and setting the stage for the Supreme Court's April arguments.

Only 11 states had passed laws or referenda allowing same-sex marriage, but all had come in recent years, suggesting to justices who dissented from the majority's opinion that change was coming on its own and no judicial interference was needed.

Kennedy, however, said it would be wrong to wait.

Bonauto, who won the 2003 decision that led to Massachusetts allowing same-sex marriages and argued DeBoer and Rowse's case, told the court that to deny same-sex couples and their children the benefits of marriage places a "stain of unworthiness" on them that "contravenes the basic constitutional commitment to equal dignity."

Schuette's office re-enlisted a former state solicitor general, John Bursch, with extensive experience before the Supreme Court, to present the defense. Before the court in April, Bursch argued that the state ban was not motivated by animosity but that, since the Constitution is silent on the question of marriage, it falls to the states -- not the federal courts -- to define it.

He said limiting it to opposite-gender couples was a legally appropriate means of encouraging biologically reproductive couples to raise families. Schuette's office had hoped the court would follow a ruling it won in 2013 in support of a statewide ban on using racial preferences in college admissions decisions.

Many more issues will have to be worked out in the wake of the landmark decision, however, such as rules for divorce proceedings, parental gender references on birth certificates, and presumptions of legal parentage if a spouse's partner becomes pregnant. And many states, including Michigan, and the federal government still lack statutes barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in housing, employment or public accommodation.

That said, there was no denying the gravitas of Friday ruling.

"This is a good day in history. The Supreme Court is on the right side of history," said DeBoer. "It's unbelievable."



Contact Todd Spangler at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tsspangler. Staff writers Katrease Stafford and Paul Egan contributed to this story.