GAY-RIGHTS TIMELINE
A look at key events in the history of gay rights in the United States.
1950: The Mattachine Society, considered the first national U.S. gay rights organization, is founded in Los Angeles.
1958: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case One, Inc. v. Olesen, backs the free-speech rights of a gay magazine after U.S. postal officials and the FBI labeled it obscene and prohibited its mail distribution. It is seen as the first gay rights case before the Supreme Court.
1961: Illinois becomes the first state to decriminalize sodomy.
1969: Police raids at the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, trigger violent protests in a seminal moment in the gay rights movement.
1977: Singer and Christian conservative Anita Bryant spearheads a campaign in Florida's Dade County leading to the repeal of a local ordinance barring anti-gay discrimination.
1978: Gay rights champion Harvey Milk of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors is shot dead along with Mayor George Moscone by a former city supervisor who is later cleared of murder charges, being convicted instead on lesser charges.
1982: Wisconsin becomes the first state to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.
1986: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Bowers v. Hardwick, upholds a Georgia sodomy law, ruling consenting adults have no constitutional right to engage in homosexual acts even in private.
1987: Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators march in Washington, faulting President Ronald Reagan's response to the AIDS epidemic and demanding more federal money for AIDS research and treatment. The U.S. AIDS epidemic in the 1980s disproportionately involved gay men.
1996: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Romer v. Evans, throws out a Colorado measure approved by voters that denied gays protections against discrimination.
1997: In a pivotal popular culture moment, the main character in Ellen DeGeneres' sitcom comes out as gay, just as the comedian herself had done.
2000: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, decides the Boy Scouts can bar gays as troop leaders.
2003: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Lawrence v. Texas, overturns its Bowers v. Hardwick ruling, throwing out a Texas sodomy law prohibiting two people of the same sex from certain sex acts.
2004: Massachusetts becomes the first state to legalize same-sex marriages after a state court finds banning them violates the state constitution.
2010: President Barack Obama signs a law repealing the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" policy that had banned gays from serving openly in the U.S. military.
2012: Obama becomes the first president to support gay marriage.
2013: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case United States v. Windsor, rules unconstitutional a 1996 law that declared for the purposes of federal benefits marriage was defined as between one man and one woman. Afterward, an increasing number of states allow gay marriage.
2014: The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to decide whether states can ban gay marriage and sets arguments for April 28, with a decision due by the end of June.
— Reuters
COMPLETE COVERAGE
Our Washington Bureau wa inside and outside of the U.S. Supreme Court for the gay marriage hearings. Get the latest news as this story develops on our new Ohio Politics Facebook page and follow our team on Twitter at @Ohio_Politics
GAY-RIGHTS TIMELINE
A look at key events in the history of gay rights in the United States.
1950: The Mattachine Society, considered the first national U.S. gay rights organization, is founded in Los Angeles.
1958: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case One, Inc. v. Olesen, backs the free-speech rights of a gay magazine after U.S. postal officials and the FBI labeled it obscene and prohibited its mail distribution. It is seen as the first gay rights case before the Supreme Court.
1961: Illinois becomes the first state to decriminalize sodomy.
1969: Police raids at the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, trigger violent protests in a seminal moment in the gay rights movement.
1977: Singer and Christian conservative Anita Bryant spearheads a campaign in Florida's Dade County leading to the repeal of a local ordinance barring anti-gay discrimination.
1978: Gay rights champion Harvey Milk of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors is shot dead along with Mayor George Moscone by a former city supervisor who is later cleared of murder charges, being convicted instead on lesser charges.
1982: Wisconsin becomes the first state to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.
1986: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Bowers v. Hardwick, upholds a Georgia sodomy law, ruling consenting adults have no constitutional right to engage in homosexual acts even in private.
1987: Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators march in Washington, faulting President Ronald Reagan's response to the AIDS epidemic and demanding more federal money for AIDS research and treatment. The U.S. AIDS epidemic in the 1980s disproportionately involved gay men.
1996: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Romer v. Evans, throws out a Colorado measure approved by voters that denied gays protections against discrimination.
1997: In a pivotal popular culture moment, the main character in Ellen DeGeneres' sitcom comes out as gay, just as the comedian herself had done.
2000: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, decides the Boy Scouts can bar gays as troop leaders.
2003: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Lawrence v. Texas, overturns its Bowers v. Hardwick ruling, throwing out a Texas sodomy law prohibiting two people of the same sex from certain sex acts.
2004: Massachusetts becomes the first state to legalize same-sex marriages after a state court finds banning them violates the state constitution.
2010: President Barack Obama signs a law repealing the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" policy that had banned gays from serving openly in the U.S. military.
2012: Obama becomes the first president to support gay marriage.
2013: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case United States v. Windsor, rules unconstitutional a 1996 law that declared for the purposes of federal benefits marriage was defined as between one man and one woman. Afterward, an increasing number of states allow gay marriage.
2014: The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to decide whether states can ban gay marriage and sets arguments for April 28, with a decision due by the end of June.
— Reuters
COMPLETE COVERAGE
Our Washington Bureau wa inside and outside of the U.S. Supreme Court for the gay marriage hearings. Get the latest news as this story develops on our new Ohio Politics Facebook page and follow our team on Twitter at @Ohio_Politics
COMPLETE COVERAGE
Our Washington Bureau wa inside and outside of the U.S. Supreme Court for the gay marriage hearings. Get the latest news as this story develops on our new Ohio Politics Facebook page and follow our team on Twitter at @Ohio_Politics
COMPLETE COVERAGE
Our Washington Bureau wa inside and outside of the U.S. Supreme Court for the gay marriage hearings. Get the latest news as this story develops on our new Ohio Politics Facebook page and follow our team on Twitter at @Ohio_Politics
The arguments were extended to two and a half hours from the customary one, but expected swing vote Anthony Kennedy didn’t tip his hand Tuesday when same-sex marriage finally got its day before the nation’s highest court.
As hundreds of supporters and opponents chanted outside, the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday waded into the divisive debate on whether Ohio and a handful of other states have violated the Constitution by prohibiting gay marriage.
The ruling, closely watched from coast to coast, will be handed down in late June.
Kennedy’s leanings were difficult to detect. At one point, he seemed to suggest that it would be better for the states to decide the issue as opposed to the justices, saying, “It’s very difficult for the court to say, ‘Oh well, we know better.’ ”
But later in the argument, he displayed more sympathy for same-sex marriages when he questioned what he called the “premise that only opposite-sex couples can have a bonding with the child. That was very interesting, but it’s just a wrong premise.”
As one gay marriage opponent erupted with a nearly unheard of outburst inside the stately chambers, the justices peppered the five lawyers arguing the cases with stinging questions as it became quickly obvious there is a deep split on the court as well as the nation.
At issue is whether states have broad authority to write their own marriage laws even if those laws prohibit same-sex couples from marrying.
U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, who argued against the Ohio ban on behalf of the Obama administration, said without a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, gay couples in Ohio and “a minority of states” will be “relegated to demeaning second-class status.”
Attempting to link the dispute with racial discrimination in the deep South in the 1950s, Verrilli warned that if states can continue to ban gay marriage, the United States will become a “house divided” similar to what “we had with de jure racial segregation.” He added that he did not “know why we would want to repeat that history.”
But John Bursch, a special assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan, countered, “This case isn’t about how to define marriage – it’s about who gets to decide that question.”
“Is it the people acting through the democratic process or is it the federal courts?” Bursch asked. “We’re asking you to affirm every individual’s fundamental liberty interest in deciding the meaning of marriage.”
The ruling likely hinges on the vote of Kennedy. If he sides with the court’s liberal bloc — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer — the justices almost certainly will invalidate the state bans in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Michigan.
In a sign of how emotional the issue is, an opponent of same-sex marriage arose in the court room and shouted that “homosexuality is an abomination.” Security officials removed him from the court, but his shouting could be heard for several minutes even after the chamber doors slammed shut.
Justice Antonin Scalia, known for his acerbic wit, quipped that the outburst was “a little refreshing.”
The justices took up the case at a time when there has been a seismic shift in public opinion. In November 2004, 61.7 percent of Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage.
But between 2003 and 2014, 19 states and the District of Columbia legalized same-sex marriage and today — either through legislative action or court rulings — 37 states and the District of Columbia recognize same-sex marriage.
Just two years ago in United States v. Windsor, Kennedy provided the fifth and decisive vote as the court invalidated a 1996 federal law defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
The case has given celebrity status to James Obergefell of Cincinnati, who was made the lead plaintiff. Obergefell, along with his husband John Arthur, challenged Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage in 2013, just months before Arthur died of Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Mary Bonauto, an attorney representing Obergefell, said, "States do have primacy over domestic relations, except their laws must respect the constitutional rights of persons, and Windsor couldn't have been clearer about that."
Most federal courts took the hint in Kennedy's opinion in Windsor, with four federal courts of appeals across the country invalidating a number of same-sex marriage bans. But last year in a 2-to-1 ruling, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the bans in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan, setting up Tuesday's arguments.
Kennedy’s fellow justices Tuesday revealed less ambiguity than he did. Kagan dismissed the argument that the states have unlimited authority to decide their own marriage laws. “We don’t live in a pure democracy. We live in a constitutional democracy,” she said. “The Constitution imposes limits on what the people can do.”
By contrast, Justice Samuel Alito asked Bonauto: “Suppose we rule in your favor in this case and then after that a group consisting of two men and two women apply for a marriage license? Would there be any ground for denying them a license?”
Chief Justice John Roberts seemed troubled that the court would have the last word on whether same-sex marriage is made legal in state after state. “If you prevail here, there will be no more debate” in the states about same-sex marriage, he told Bonauto, adding that “closing of debate can close minds, and it will have a consequence on how this new institution is accepted.”
In addition to deciding whether there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, the justices also must rule whether states such as Ohio must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
In Windsor, Kennedy based his decision on the Fifth Amendment, ruling the federal law violated the constitutional guarantee that nobody can be deprived of liberty without due process of the law.
Kennedy also relied on the Fifth Amendment in 2003 to join five justices in striking down a Texas law which outlawed some homosexual activity. Writing for the majority in Lawrence v. Texas, Kennedy concluded that the right to liberty under the due process clause gives people "the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government."
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