The Supreme Court’s marriage ruling was about rights—and about love - Women’s Media Center (2024)

July 02, 2015 | Danielle Moodie-Mills | LGBTQIA

The Supreme Court’s marriage ruling was about rights—and about love - Women’s Media Center (1)

On Friday, June 26, 2015, I was glued to my Twitter feed and every cable news outlet, eagerly awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage.

For many, 6/26/15 will become a new anniversary to mark on their calendars—celebrating the freedom to marry whom you love, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity, in all 50 states.

This date was already written in bold on my calendar, fitted with a happy face emoticon. Six years prior to SCOTUS’s transformational decision, on a rooftop in Washington, DC, my then girlfriend (now wife) popped the question.

Back in 2009, when Aisha asked me to marry her, there were only a handful of states where we could legally wed, and the District wasn’t one of them.

The marriage equality fight was just beginning to heat up in our adopted hometown as well as nationally—except most of the people on TV at that time discussing the importance of marriage didn’t look like us; they were white, affluent, gay men. To us, it seemed that they weren’t truly able to invoke empathy, because in many ways white men (gay or straight) are viewed as the oppressor, not the oppressed. And while debating marriage in the context of "rights" has its merits, we were learning that when we talked about loveand relationships, hearts and minds began to open.

Out of seven billion people on this planet, when you find the one person that loves you and only you, you want to shout it from every rooftop and celebrate with anyone and everyone you can. Deciding to entwine your life with someone else’s is an indescribable joy that everyone, regardless of whom they love, should have the right to experience.

It was in the blissful moments after Aisha asked me to spend the rest of my life with her that the politics become personal for us.

Sure, we were two politicos who had ventured to Washington, DC for college from our respective hometowns in New Jersey and New York because we wanted to be at the epicenter of power, “making a difference.” The phrase “making a difference,” however, didn’t really feel that significant until we actually had something to fight for.

The idea that our love was any different from that of our parents, friends, or colleagues—something separate, unequal, unsavory—sparked something in us.

We believed that we had the right to live, love, and labor OUT loud wherever our hearts desired, and that no one (namely our country) whose founding principles are steeped in democracy and every citizen’s right to pursuit their happiness, should be able to stop us.

It was with the audacity of this truth that we decided to dive wholeheartedly into the fight for marriage equality. We knew that it was going to be the stories of love and commitment, not statistics and poll numbers, that would ultimately change hearts and minds.

Maybe it was youthful ignorance, but we believed that our message of love—and black love specifically—was something special, and if we could just share our story and diversify the images of what same-sex couples looked like and who marriage was “for,” then we would be making a difference.

In 2009, we went from being two young women engaged and in love to being national spokespeople on marriage equality and then to becoming LGBT advocates, launching the FIRE (Fighting Injustice to Reach Equality) Initiative at the Center for American Progress—working to amplify the stories of African American LGBT people and the discriminatory policies that were most adversely affecting our community.

Last Friday, when my wife and I sat with bated breath, holding hands and watching the announcement that love finally won, tears began streaming down our faces. We knew in that moment that our voices, our work, our love mattered.

A portion of Justice Kennedy’s decision read:

The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision made us—all of us, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals—not only more visible, but a bit more liberated in our skin. Our country, our government, recognized our loving relationships—and us—as equal.

As Justice Kennedy wrote, as we evolve, so must our idea of what justice and liberty look like. Our forefathers and foremothers couldn’t have imagined the White House and other national monuments turning rainbow last Friday in recognition of LGBT pride or that #LoveWins.

They couldn’t have imagined my wife and me, two African American lesbians claiming our love and humanity in such big and bold ways that we would have our images and words scattered throughout the media.

What they could imagine, though, was the creation of a more perfect union—and on Friday our country lived up to its ideals.

Discrimination seeks to make us invisible. It seeks to shrink us and disconnect us from our dignity and our humanity, but when we dare to live OUT loud, to be bold, and stand in our truth, we shine a light and act as a beacon of hope—showing others that they have the right to be visible, be fabulous, and love OUT loud unapologetically. #LoveWon


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The Supreme Court’s marriage ruling was about rights—and about love - Women’s Media Center (2024)

FAQs

What did the Supreme Court say about women's rights? ›

The United States Supreme Court rules for the first time ever that a law that discriminates against women is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, holding unanimously that a state statute that provides that males must be preferred to females in estate administration denies women equal protection of the law.

In what case did Supreme Court say marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man and is fundamental to our very existence and survival? ›

Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) A unanimous Court struck down state laws banning marriage between individuals of different races, holding that these anti-miscegenation statutes violated both the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Did the Supreme Court hold that there is a constitutional right to marry? ›

The Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the right to marry as one of the fundamental liberties it protects, and that analysis applies to same-sex couples in the same manner as it does to opposite-sex couples.

Which Supreme Court case made marriage equality the law of the land quizlet? ›

OBERGEFELL v. HODGES | Supreme Court | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute.

What was the argument for women's rights based on? ›

Instead of promoting a vision of gender equality, suffragists usually argued that the vote would enable women to be better wives and mothers. Women voters, they said, would bring their moral superiority and domestic expertise to issues of public concern.

What effect did the Supreme Court decision have on the women's suffrage movement? ›

The Court decided that suffrage was not a right of citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment, therefore, did not give women the right to vote. Suffragists would have to develop other strategies to change state and national laws.

How does the Supreme Court define marriage? ›

Other limitations on individuals include age and close relationship. In 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which, for federal purposes, defined marriage as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife" (1 U.S.C. § 7).

Which Supreme Court case stating that marriage is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution? ›

Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Plaintiffs challenged the laws as violating the Fourteenth Amendment. The district courts ruled in their favor.

What did the Supreme Court rule about the Defense of marriage Act? ›

The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that section three of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) is unconstitutional and that the federal government cannot discriminate against married lesbian and gay couples for the purposes of determining federal benefits and protections.

Does the Constitution say marriage is between a man and a woman? ›

Constitutional Amendment - Marriage Protection Amendment - Declares that: (1) marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman; and (2) neither the U.S. Constitution nor the constitution of any state shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents of marriage be ...

Is interracial marriage a constitutional right? ›

US courts have long recognized a constitutional right to marry. In 1967, the US Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional, extending the right to marry to interracial couples nationwide.

Is marriage a human right? ›

The right to marry and found a family is a recognized human right.

What was the Supreme Court case called for interracial marriage? ›

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In what case the Supreme Court clearly identified a constitutional right to marriage? ›

Then, in 2015, the Obergefell v. Hodges case had a sweeping effect when the Supreme Court clearly identified a constitutional right to marriage based on the Fourteenth Amendment.

Which Supreme Court case struck down the Defense of Marriage Act quizlet? ›

In 2013 in United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA's definition of marriage as only between one man and one woman.

What does the 14th Amendment say about women's rights? ›

The 14th Amendment provides, in part, that no state can "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Title IX specifically prohibits sex discrimination.

What was the decision in Roe v. Wade? ›

In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decided that the right to privacy implied in the 14th Amendment protected abortion as a fundamental right. However, the government retained the power to regulate or restrict abortion access depending on the stage of pregnancy.

Did the Constitution say anything about women's rights? ›

Women were deliberately left out of the U.S. Constitution as they were not recognized as full citizens in 1787. Even today, centuries after it was enacted, the Constitution does not fully prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.

Did the 19th Amendment go to the Supreme Court? ›

The Supreme Court has not decided many cases interpreting the Nineteenth Amendment. In the only significant case addressing the Amendment's effect, Breedlove v. Suttles, the Court upheld a Georgia law that required state residents between the ages of 21 and 60 to pay a poll tax.

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