Fears for Marriage Equality

Ten years after the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, are gay couples’ rights at risk?

- by JASON LEMON

A DECADE AFTER SAME-SEX MARriage was legalized nationwide via a Supreme Court ruling, many LGBTQ+ individuals fear the right may no longer be secure, with some signs that long-growing Republican acceptance of it could be waning.

Obergefell v. Hodges was decided on June 26, 2015, in a 5-4 ruling. Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who still sit on the nation’s top court, wrote dissenting opinions along with their former colleague, the late Justice Antonin Scalia. While Gallup polling in 2015 showed that just 37 percent of Republicans thought same-sex marriages should be valid, that number hit a record high of 55 percent in 2022 but has fallen to 41 percent as of May.

Over the past few months, conservative lawmakers in at least nine states have introduced legislation aimed at undermining same-sex marriage. Some bills specifically take aim at the Supreme Court, urging the justices to overturn the Obergefell precedent. “As an interracial gay couple with an adopted daughter, these developments are deeply unsettling—especially living in a swing state that leans conservative,” Nikhil Patil, who resides in Georgia and got married in 2020, told Newsweek. “My husband and I have had difficult conversations about contingency plans.”

Jeremy Hanson-McIntyre, who lives in Michigan and married his husband Joe in 2024, echoed this, telling Newsweek that the legality of his marriage feels “very unstable, precarious and unsafe.” He particularly blamed President Donald Trump and the Christian nationalist movement he's aligned with.

“The current sitting president has built his campaign, image and reputation around the hatred and anger from the viewpoint of the Christian nationalists who utilize their hate-filled Bible thumping as a means to silence freedoms and prevent mere humans from simply living their own lives,” he said. Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.