Marking 20 years of marriage-and marriage equality

BY THE TIME HEIDI NORTON married Gina Smith on May 17, 2004, their two sons had already been born with the nameNortonsmith-they adopted after tying the knot. It was the first day same-sex couples could be legally wed in Massachusetts, thanks to the success of their hardwon lawsuit. "You came out as Nortonsmith," Gina told the boys that day. "We had to earn it."

- SOLCYRÉ BURGA

Their case, Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (named for one of the six other co-plaintiff couples) was monumental. "No state in the nation had done this before," says Mary Bonauto, the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) attorney behind Goodridge. But the Nov. 18, 2003, decision of the state's Supreme Judicial Court sparked new challenges. Within hours, Governor Mitt Romney called for changes to the state constitution to bar the ruling. President George W. Bush said he was "troubled" by it, and court efforts against Goodridge settled just three days before May 17. It wasn't until 2015, through the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges, that same-sex marriage became legal across the U.S.

Many advocates now fear that precedent could be in danger, with Justice Clarence Thomas referencing the possibility of overturning it in his Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization concurring opinion. "Not for a second," says Bonauto, who also argued Obergefell, "do I think we should be complacent."

These are the stories of couples who married thanks to Goodridge. Find more on time.com.

Gina (left) and Heidi Nortonsmith, both 59, were plaintiffs in Goodridge. They met in 1990 at a National Lesbian and Gay Law Association gathering in Atlanta. They held their own commitment ceremony in 1993, before getting legally married on May 17, 2004. The main reason they joined the lawsuit was to protect their family.

Gina: We already had our oldest son, and had been working with our lawyer to draw legal papers to show that if something happened to Heidi, as the birth mom, I was the other parent. There was only so much that our lawyer could do for us because we couldn't get legally married. Heidi was pregnant with our second son when our lawyer said, "Hey, I know about this thing that GLAD is planning to do. Would you be interested in talking to them?"