One of the first landmarks in the fight for marriage equality in the United States occurred a decade ago when Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in America in May, 2004.
The effort refused to take hold nationwide, though. Only four other states followed Massachusetts’ lead in the five years following their decision.
In fact, many states chose this time and the years following to build bans against same-sex marriage into their constitutions. Beyond the refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, these states were afforded the right to refuse to recognize as married same-sex couples who had received legal marriage licenses in other states. This was made possible by the Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed eight years prior to Massachusetts’ legalization.
The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, defines the terms of marriage, such as “marriage” and “spouse,” as applying only to heterosexual couples comprised of one man and one woman. The act was passed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton and has been the central cited justification for denying same-sex couples marriage rights, both on the federal and state level.
While the general population wouldn’t realize it for several years, the landscape of the marriage equality issue would forever change in 2009. In that year, 80-year old Edith Windsor lost her partner of over forty years and wife, Thea Spyer.
In the wake of her wife’s death, and having inherited the entirety of her estate, Windsor applied for the estate tax exemption given surviving spouses. She was denied and ordered to pay $363,053 in estate taxes. The reason given for the denial was that Windsor did not fit the federal definition of a spouse under section 3 of DOMA, regardless of the fact that the couple was lawfully married.
Windsor responded by suing the federal government, and is reported as arguing that DOMA treated same-sex and opposite-sex couples in similar situations disparately.
Four years after her wife’s death and many legal battles later, United States v. Windsor reached the Supreme Court. In June, 2013, in a narrowly split 5-4 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled section 3 of The Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. After the ruling, Windsor told a news conference, “If I had to survive Thea, what a glorious way to do it.”
In the following year and a half, statewide same-sex marriage bans would topple, one after the other, as judges referenced the breakthrough decision in the Windsor case. Without DOMA providing the right to refuse same-sex couples, state bans were forced into a new light and similarly ruled unconstitutional.
Twenty-four states would legalize same-sex marriage between 2013 and 2014 while eleven additional states would have their bans on gay marriage ruled unconstitutional in the same time-frame.
In November, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio, became the first court since the Windsor case to uphold state bans on same-sex marriage. This decision reversed lower-court decisions, which found the bans unconstitutional, in Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky.
This development makes it near inevitable that the issue will make its way to the Supreme Court, sooner rather than later.
While the Supreme Court’s decision in the Windsor case gives same-sex marriage supporters confidence, the court remains divided on the issue. If, or when, they do take up the issue the country is sure to be watching and waiting with bated breath.
Over the past year the legal state of same-sex marriage in America has changed drastically. The catalyst for this was the 2013 United States v. Windsor Supreme Court case in which the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was found to be unconstitutional in its refusal to extend the definition of “marriage” and “spouse” to same-sex unions. The overturning of DOMA, a recurring federal defense against providing equal protection to same-sex marriages, led to a flood of cases challenging individual states’ same-sex marriage bans. Twenty-four states legalized same-sex marriage since 2013 and eleven more had their bans on such unions found unconstitutional, though appeals are pending for many.