Jim Obergefell stood on the steps outside the US Supreme Court alone on Friday but he felt his late husband, John Arthur, was there alongside him.

Obergefell was the lead plaintiff in the case that resulted in same-sex marriage being made legal across the after a 5-4 decision.

‘I know in my heart that John is with me today,’ sais Obergefell who took out of a photo of Arthur, placed it near his heart, and thanked his husband ‘for loving me, making me a better man and giving me something worth fighting for.’

He sued to have his marriage to Arthur recognized by the state of Ohio after the couple married in dramatic fashion in Maryland three months before his husband’s death.

The couple exchanged vows on an airport tarmac in Maryland in the summer of 2013, three months before Arthur died that October. He suffered from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and had been in hospice care for several months.

They raised $12,700 to charter a private plane and get married in Maryland where same-sex marriage was already legal. After their seven-minute ceremony, they could not fly commercially due to Arthur’s condition.

Later, Obergefell said to MSNBC: ‘This is a promise that I made to him, that I would continue to fight. … From the beginning we knew it was the right decision, the right thing to do. The highest court in the land says the fight (we) started was the right fight.’

Obergefell spoke about how much it meant to have his marriage alluded to in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion which stated in part: ‘As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death.’

‘It was incredible to hear him talk about us,’ Obergefell said. ‘It means the world to me that he understands that marriage does go beyond death and that’s what John and I were fighting for.’