What Same Sex Marriage Ruling Meant for Many Americans

"Ye Shall Stay Married"

 

Hours after the Obergefell decision, Michael and I married in our home state of Tennessee, becoming the first same-sex couple to wed in Montgomery County. The next day, our story and pictures were prominently featured in a local newspaper. Michael and I were out to some close friends and family, but not to the wider world. I was ex-military; Michael worked construction in a rural area.

While there was backlash to the article on social media, what surprised us was the in-person acceptance we received. Co-workers supported Michael. Strangers congratulated me. We felt free.

Today, we live openly and are growing a family. Since 2020, we’ve fostered over 20 children, adopted four and are adopting our fifth. Obergefell empowered us to come out and build a full life.

DENVER

Christina Baker

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On the day that the Obergefell decision was announced, my twin sons were home from college and getting ready for work. We cried, embraced and smiled. One son could marry a woman someday; one son could marry a man someday. I’m crying 10 years later as I write this. 

LOS ANGELES

Marina Rota

For decades I felt superior to the institution of marriage. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that my relationships were valid or how they should be celebrated. But in 2022, my partner, Sara, was diagnosed with A.L.S. and would soon be gone. I was devastated — and, suddenly, desperate to marry her.

Without marriage, there would be no legal record of our love, nor any spiritual record in the form of ceremony. I could not live with that.

So there we were in our living room, just two days before Sara passed, saying our vows in front of a rabbi. I stood beside Sara in her wheelchair, while her sons and our friends held the huppah. Autumn light streaming through our windows, I was deeply grateful for the right to marry the woman I love.

PENSACOLA, FLA.

Laurence Best 

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With the stroke of a pen, our lives changed completely. Suddenly we were seen as respectable, decent and, dare I say, “normal.” The way we’re treated post-Obergefell is dramatically different, whether by merchants, innkeepers or neighbors, even though we live in the Deep South. Our fingers are crossed that Obergefell is not reversed by people who consider us “less than.” We are not less; we are simply two men devoted to one another for life. Imagine that.

CHICAGO

Adam Wallenfang

In America, we’re taught that we can become anything we want. But growing up gay meant putting asterisks next to my aspirations.

I could become a teacher (which I did), but it would be touchy to be openly gay. I could fall in love (which I did), but my marriage would be only as binding as the Swiss cheese network of states that recognized it. I could become a father (which I did), but that act of devotion would be mired in legalities that felt designed to dissuade.

Obergefell erased many of those caveats, making my and my husband’s hopes feel possible. Someday, our daughter will learn that her country once forbade her dads to marry. But when we tell her that she can become anything she wants in today’s America, the message will be truer.

EVANSTON, ILL.

Toni Goehring

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When I told my 4-year-old that marriage equality was made law, he said, “You mean everyone can play now?” “Yes,” I said, sensing what this freedom could mean for me. I hadn’t come out to anyone, not even to myself, but my straight marriage and life didn’t feel right. Five years later, at 40, I finally came out and left my marriage. I made a lot of mistakes in love after that, but at least I was allowed to make them.

 

COLORADO SPRINGS

Robin Bowman

In 2013, Jen and I had to travel from Nebraska to Iowa to marry. Back in Nebraska, we had to go through a separate process so our new last name would be recognized in states where our marriage wasn’t. When applying for health insurance for Jen, I couldn’t get my employer to accept our marriage certificate as proof of our relationship. Instead, I had to show I’d added her to my car title.

Five months later, we had to return to Iowa for the birth of our daughter. Had she been born in Nebraska, Jen wouldn’t have been allowed to appear on the birth certificate, leaving her without parental rights.

Since Obergefell, we no longer have to worry about our marital status, insurability or parental rights when crossing state lines. I only wish it had happened sooner!

SAN JUAN ISLAND, WASH.

Karen Meenan

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I’m a heterosexual woman, married for 25 years. How has the Obergefell decision impacted my life? It hasn’t. Not at all. That’s why I don’t understand why some straight people oppose it. Love and marry whom you want. It has no impact on the rest of us.

NEW YORK CITY

James Walter Doyle

As a redneck boy in Florida who liked boys, I never dreamed about a wedding. Even by the time we two frat boys fell in love in 2012, we never spoke about marriage. “Domestic partners” made us feel like Bert and Ernie, so we were happy to be boyfriends who fled Florida for N.Y.C.

The day of the Obergefell decision, my conservative Catholic parents were staying with us in our guest bedroom despite not allowing Jamie and me to share a bedroom in their home because we weren’t married. When he heard the news, Jamie barged in with champagne. He knew my parents would cringe, but he was overjoyed that our love now carried equal weight.

“Guess we’ll be sleeping in the same room soon,” he said with a smile.

LEXINGTON, KY.

Laura Joans

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The Obergefell ruling led to an attitude shift I doubt our families even recognize. Our plans for children, vacations and retirement are now included naturally in conversation. Before, there was a tendency to not ask or to awkwardly breeze over our input. Our children picked up on this and became less guarded in talking about us as a family. Within our community, our relationship became legitimate. We’re no longer 50-year-old girlfriends but just another married couple. No one blinks when we say “my wife.” 

NEW YORK CITY

Michael Rucker

Obergefell aroused our conflicting views on gay marriage. I harbored romantic fantasies. John remained adamantly opposed: Why mess with our happy 15-year relationship? Ultimately, bureaucracy brought us to the altar. After John was diagnosed with incurable cancer, I convinced him to get a quick City Hall marriage to mitigate any legal complications.

Days later, John entered the hospital. At every turn, someone asked, “Who’s the next of kin?” The look of adoration in John’s eyes whenever I answered, “I am,” proved he was as overjoyed as I was. Our 15-month marriage was the pinnacle of our relationship despite much of it being spent at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

I’m no longer married. But I’m not “single.” I’m a widower. And I am immensely grateful the Supreme Court made that distinction possible.

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Neil Rafferty

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My partner and I were born and bred in Alabama. We learned to swim in these rivers. Our blood permeates this red soil. Alabama is our home. And we weren’t going to get married anywhere else. We met in 2004, served together in the Marines under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” survived it all. With Obergefell, we were finally able to marry. In our home, where we belong, with the people we love.

ST. LOUIS

Christine Win

In 1985, in the basement of my childhood home, I shared my first kiss — with a girl. My little heart ached. I had already been dreaming of becoming a mother. But my fourth-grade self believed that to have children I had to be married. And women couldn’t marry other women.

At a slumber party weeks later, a friend led me to a Ouija board. When she asked if I would ever get married, the reply was “N-O.” My heart stopped. When she asked why, it spelled “G-A-Y.”

Every cell in my body contracted. I went on to marry a man and become a mother of four. The day of the Supreme Court decision, I finally felt released, thankful my children would never have to make the difficult decisions I did.

ALBANY, N.Y.

Olivia Breda

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Obergefell happened when I was 13, too young to appreciate its true weight. I couldn’t even talk to the girl I liked in science class. All I knew is I was no longer “weird.” The law meant I could just be. Now I’m learning how precarious it is. Every article that references gay marriage strikes fear — for my ability to marry and the message marriage equality sends: That being gay is neither curse nor sin. It just is.

NEW YORK CITY

Brett Krutzsch

When I found myself in an emergency room in rural Ohio in October 2015, a billing representative asked for my wife’s name. “Um, Kevin,” I replied.

“Oh! You’re our first,” she said. As a gay Jew in need of medical care in small-town America, I hadn’t planned to pioneer anything. But I took comfort knowing that people across the country were now legally required to recognize my marriage. I no longer worried if my rights changed by state, or if my conservative in-laws would ignore my husband’s wishes if something happened to him.

Kevin and I call each other “Husband,” an endearment born from excitement that we could wed. Ten years post-Obergefell, our love continues to grow. He is family in my eyes and according to law. May the Supreme Court keep it so.

STAMFORD, CONN.

Brandon Carrillo

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After the decision, my mother burst into my bedroom, yelling, “You can get married!” My sexuality felt taboo within my family of Filipino and Mexican immigrants. Their silence left me isolated and anxious. But that morning, that tension began to break. My mom’s face, filled with joy, ironically communicated so much of her unspoken fear. For both of us, Obergefell meant that I could be accepted and protected throughout our country. Smiling, I replied, “I can.”

KENT, WASH.

David Stoeltzing

This ruling occurred the summer I graduated from Liberty University. Deeply closeted, I felt hope when I heard the news, unexpectedly, as I had grown up as a conservative evangelical.

I happened to be in DC that day with friends who weren’t supportive of the LGBT community. While they expressed their disgust over the ruling, I looked at all of the rainbow attire, the flags, the face paint, and felt electricity. It led me to come out to my friends and family and began my journey toward self acceptance.

Today I’m married to my husband, Jeet, and we are both deeply grateful for Obergefell and thankful to those who fought so hard and so long for us to have this right.

SEEKONK, MASS.

Joseph Novinson

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My future husband and I were en route to another wedding ceremony when we heard the Obergefell news on our car radio. A year later, my parents saw me down the aisle to the joy of family and friends. The next day, we awoke to the news of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando — 49 people killed. Laws change more quickly than norms. Our marriage provided a layer of protection, but it cannot disarm hate.

SAN DIEGO

Girard Parent

After I came out to my parents and family 46 years ago, my father said, “I hope you know you’re killing your mother.” Soon after, I met someone whom I spent the next 15 years with, and my parents embraced him as they would a daughter-in-law. The difference, however, was the lack of any formal recognition from the government and church.

After he and I broke up, I met the love of my life. We adopted a child from Romania, had a commitment ceremony in 2002, and in 2008 were legally married in California. My parents had died by then. But when Obergefell established same-sex marriage as a national right, I heard my father’s voice anew, saying, “I hope you know how happy your mother is for you.”

MADISON, S.D.

Samanda Chase Nunnery

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Obergefell means happiness. It means saying “my wife” with pride. It means smiling at each other across the kitchen table over midnight cereal. It means knowing we are strong on our own but stronger together. It means love. 

Produced by Jeremy Allen, Michael Beswetherick, Antonio de Luca and Hitomi Sato.

A correction was made on June 26, 2025: An earlier version of this article misspelled the last name of Brandon Carrillo. His name is Brandon Carrillo, not Brandon Carillo.