Last week marked the seventh anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage across the United States, lifted restrictions in more than a dozen states, and gave gay and lesbian married couples equal rights and legal protections. provided, who are married to heterosexuals.
The months and years following the High Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefels v. Hodges saw an emotional outcry from LGBTQ rights opponents, who argued that same-sex marriage would destroy the traditional family and the institution of marriage.
In the years that followed, it was difficult to find evidence to support such dire predictions. The US marriage rate was declining long before same-sex couples had the right to marry. To the extent that the trend has continued since 2015, the researchers point to economic and social factors other than same-sex associations.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of gay and lesbian people have embraced marriage. The most recent data for 2020 from the US Census Bureau shows that more than 570,000 households were of married same-sex couples, the equivalent of more than 1.1 million people.
“Ultimately we have the same rights as other couples who love each other,” said Jill Sparagio, administrator of New Orleans, a Louisiana-based information technology company, speaking with VOA. Sparaggio and his partner married a year before the Obergefels regime in Illinois, where same-sex marriage was already legal.
“But we weren’t recognized as married in Louisiana until a Supreme Court decision in 2015,” she said. “We wanted to be treated the same way as our heterosexual married friends. Now, if one of us gets sick, the hospital can’t get us out of the room, and we’re going to have each other as husband and wife. We may be entitled to our partner’s Social Security if we survive. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it is.”
However, opponents of the decision say allowing same-sex marriage has done damage.
Liberty Council President Matthew Staver said, “My concern is that it has harmed the institution of marriage and families, but it has also harmed our Constitution. It has no legal basis, and a house has been built.” Will fall on the sand eventually.”
marriage as stability
Molly Bourg, who works in the food and beverage industry in New Orleans, was a senior in college at the time of Obergefell v. Hodges. Borg, who prefers non-gender specific pronouns, said the ruling changed his view of what was possible in his life.
“I didn’t come out as gay until after the decision,” Borg told VOA. “Once something becomes legal it feels more socially acceptable. Before, though, I felt like, ‘Why put myself out there to dismiss the community I grew up in?'”
Borg remembers, for example, watching her siblings lean on their families for support during high school and college breakups.
“Meanwhile when my first heart broke, I remember having to deal with it all alone because I was too afraid to tell anyone,” he said, noting that life was more difficult for someone in the LGBTQ community.
Today, however, with same-sex marriage legal across the country, things seem more normal, Bourg said.
“My partner and I can talk about life and wedding plans, which, like everyone else, have been going on for two or three years,” he said. “It feels safe and homely, and I love that security. I guess any would.”
increasingly vocal minority
Polls show Americans are increasingly supporting gay marriage. According to Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey conducted in May, 71% of Americans say they support gay and lesbian people’s right to marriage. This is a record high, up over 70% from a year ago.
When first surveyed by Gallup in 1996, only 27% of the country supported same-sex marriage, indicating a steady shift in public perception about such unions—even as Even among Republican voters.
“I hope they have all the rights of a traditional family,” said Jillian Dani, a Republican voter from Merritt Island, Florida, who said she believed the US Constitution to decide matters like this. leaves the states.
A Gallup poll reveals one group that still opposes same-sex marriage: Americans who say they attend church weekly. Only 40% of regular church-goers say they are in favor of same-sex unions.
“I don’t think Obergefels had any effect on the institution of marriage and it had no effect on me,” said Judy Thompson, a self-proclaimed supporter of former President Donald Trump, from Garland, Texas. “I think the decision was abhorrent, to be honest. According to God’s law, marriage is between a man and a woman, and I want to see the Supreme Court uphold its earlier ruling.”
battle preparations
The Supreme Court recently indicated that Thompson could obtain his will.
In last month’s controversial ruling on abortion, the High Court’s active conservative majority reversed nearly 50 years of precedent and ruled that individual states can decide whether to allow or prohibit the procedure.
Many LGBTQ people and their allies worry that the Supreme Court will not stop abortion. They fear the same logic that Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, would also be used to overturn decisions that expanded the rights of other groups.
Justice Clarence Thomas reinforced this principle last month with his concurrence by overturning Roe.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all actual due process precedents of this court,” he wrote, “including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefels.”
The 1965 Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut determined the right of married couples to use contraceptives. In 2003, in Lawrence v. Texas, the High Court struck down state laws across the US that penalized sodomy.
James Knoblach, a member of the LGBTQ community and vice president of a public relations and digital marketing firm in New York City, said, “I think it’s a matter of when — if not — they start coming to us, one case at a time.” ” , “You saw it in Thomas’ opinion, and I would not put it before this illegitimate court to go on to criminalize homosexuality in an attempt to turn our democracy into a democracy.”
Borg from New Orleans agreed.
“Thomas didn’t just mention Obergefels,” he said. “They also mentioned Lawrence v. Texas. They’re not just denying us marriage, they want to criminalize whatever’s going on in the bedroom, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has publicly stated that he Would defend an adversary – the sodomy law if he was brought up.”
The fears of the LGBTQ community are well-founded, said Staver of Liberty Council.
“Reversing the Obergefels is inevitable,” he said.
It will fall, Staver believes, because it is “an unfounded decision of judges who have ejected their ideology from the Constitution”, but also because of the damage they feel it will cause to families in America. Is for.
“Same-marriage has no constitutional right, and because of this, the Obergfels is doomed,” he said. “And that’s a good thing because gay marriage permanently deprives the children of either the mother or the father, and it tends to have a negative outlook on the absent gender.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, however, “no valid research has demonstrated that same-sex couples are more or less harmful than heterosexual couples.”
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry confirmed in a 2013 study that “current research shows that children with gay and lesbian parents are more likely than children with heterosexual parents in their emotional development or relationships with peers and adults.” do not differ.”
Still, many in the LGBTQ community are preparing for the worst.
“You could feel it in last month’s Pride Parade,” New York City’s Knoblach explained, referring to the LGBTQ celebrations held annually throughout the month of June. “There was a defiance in the crowd that you don’t usually feel – a feeling that a fight is coming and we’re not going to back down.”
People like Borg and his companions are also preparing outside the parade.
“We have already discussed the usual options if the Obergfels and other decisions are reversed,” Borg said. “I have no doubt that if that is the case, my home state of Louisiana would outlaw same-sex marriage.”
This would set up a very difficult decision for the Borg and many LGBTQ people like them.
“Louisiana is my home. My family is here. And if the Supreme Court stays in this direction, I’ll have to choose between my family and my home, or the chance to marry the person I love.” It … is heartbreaking.”
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