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TITLE ON SCREEN:
The Road to Marriage Equality
JIM OBERGEFELL (SHOWING A PHOTO): That’s the very first picture of us as a couple, so I always like that one. John and I knew early on that we saw a future together and we talked about how we wanted to get married. For me, that was what I saw in my family. But at that point in the mid-90s, it wasn’t an option.
NARRATION: No state legally recognized same-sex marriage, and in the 1990s, Congress also weighed in.
TEXT ON SCREEN: 1996
ARCHIVAL (ABC NEWS, 1996):
NEWS ANCHOR: The Senate today has passed what is called the Defense of Marriage Act, which means that traditional marriage under federal law is the union of a man and a woman, period.
ARCHIVAL (CBS NEWS, 9-10-96):
SENATOR ROBERT BYRD (D-WEST VIRGINIA): To insist that male-male or female-female relationships must have the same status as the marriage relationship is more than unwise, it is patently absurd.
NARRATION: Over the next 15 years, marriage equality rights activists succeeded in changing laws in several states, but the federal government refused to acknowledge the legality of these unions. Then the question reached the Supreme Court.
JIM OBERGEFELL: On June 26th, 2013, John called me into his room because there was news coming from the Supreme Court. They’d just struck down the Defense of Marriage Act.
ARCHIVAL (CBS NEWS, 6-26-13):
NEWS REPORT: The court has just ruled part of that law is unconstitutional. That means same-sex couples who are legally married in 12 states and the District of Columbia will be eligible for federal benefits. This is being described as a big win for supporters of same-sex marriage.
JIM OBERGEFELL: I realized, here’s an opportunity where we could get married and have the federal government, at least, recognize us and say, John, Jim, you are a married couple. So I spontaneously proposed, and luckily, he said yes. But unfortunately, it was not an easy thing for us to make happen.
NARRATION: The practical effect of the Supreme Court ruling was that the federal government was now required to acknowledge same-sex marriage, but it stopped short of forcing states like Ohio from doing the same. For Obergefell and his partner, this created a difficult hurdle.
JIM OBERGEFELL: In June of 2011, John was diagnosed with A.L.S., so we had to figure out how to take a dying man with no physical abilities to another state to do something that millions of other people took for granted.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
July 11, 2013: John and Jim’s wedding day
ARCHIVAL:
JOHN ARTHUR: One year ago. This would have been as simple as us taking a trip, because I could still walk.
JIM OBERGEFELL: We took an ambulance to the airport in Cincinnati and we boarded this small medical jet and we flew to Baltimore-Washington International Airport, and our wedding ceremony took place in the airplane.
ARCHIVAL:
AUNT (OFFICIATING THE CEREMONY): Jim, you have the rings?
JIM OBERGEFELL: Yes.
JIM OBERGEFELL: The most important thing was I got to take John’s hand and we got to say the words we had wanted to say for so long.
ARCHIVAL:
JIM OBERGEFELL: With this ring I thee wed.
JOHN ARTHUR: With this ring I thee wed.
JIM OBERGEFELL: We’d been together almost 21 years at that point, and it changed everything. We felt more complete.
NARRATION: But when the couple got home, they learned that as far as Ohio was concerned, they had never gotten married at all.
JIM OBERGEFELL: John and I weren’t activists, but eight days after we got married, we filed a lawsuit in federal district court demanding that Ohio recognize our lawful Maryland marriage on John’s death certificate when he died. We had a simple decision to make: Were we willing to fight for our relationship? And it was a really easy yes for us.
NARRATION: Their lawsuit, one of dozens moving through the courts in Ohio and other states that still banned same-sex marriage, ultimately landed on the desk of a Republican politician who had just been named the director of the state’s Department of Health.
RICHARD HODGES (FORMER DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH): A legal counsel came in and told me that I would be the defendant in the Obergefell case, and I said, well, who’s Obergefell and what did I ever do to him? Personally, I’m O.K. with same-sex marriage, but I took an oath to defend the laws of the state of Ohio, and state law was very clear that marriage is between a man and a woman, so any spousal listings on any documents needed to reflect that fact. So my goal was to make sure we were professional and dignified, and that we didn’t turn this into a political circus, because people just get very upset over these issues.
ARCHIVAL (NBC NEWS, 12-7-12):
BRIAN BROWN (NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE): Unions of two men or two women are not the same thing as a marriage between a man and a woman.
ARCHIVAL(CNN, 5-10-12):
SENATOR MITT ROMNEY (R – PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE): I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender.
ARCHIVAL (C-SPAN, 7-26-16):
AUDIO: We don’t know what kind of impact all of this encroaching homosexual culture might have on our children.
ARCHIVAL (C-SPAN):
JIM OBERGEFELL: I just don’t think I can respond to that. We are not a catchable disease. We are people.
NARRATION: The push-back against gay rights didn’t shock Obergefell , whose husband died during the two years he fought to overturn Ohio’s ban. What surprised him was the support he found.
JIM OBERGEFELL: I was stopped constantly by people who wanted to hug me, shake my hand, show me photos, tell me stories. And that happened again and again and again.
This is a scrapbook put together for John and me. On these pages there are messages from across the country that people shared with us. Marriage is a human right, not a heterosexual privilege. I like that one. There are so many people here who are referencing their faith.
Our stories made it real. Everybody could connect to a story about love and loss, and that’s what changed hearts and minds.
NARRATION: On June 26th, 2015, Obergerfell was in the Supreme Court when he heard the words he’d waited so long to hear: Same-sex marriage was now legal across the country.
ARCHIVAL (MSNBC, 6-26-15):
NEWS REPORT: A dramatic moment here, a 5-4 decision. This is a total victory for the advocates of same-sex marriage.
ARCHIVAL (CNN, 6-27-15):
NEWS REPORT: Right-leaning Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, saying, quote, gay couples asked for equal dignity in the eyes of the law; the Constitution grants them that right.
ARCHIVAL (CBS NEWS, 6-26-15):
NEWS REPORT: All four of the court’s conservatives wrote dissents, saying the issue should be left to the states.
ARCHIVAL (MSNBC, 6-26-15):
NEWS REPORT: But in the states that now ban same-sex marriage, they will have to permit marriages now.
ARCHIVAL (CNN, 6-27-15):
JIM OBERGEFELL: Yes it is, Mr. president.
PRESIDENT BARAK OBAMA: I just want to say congratulations. Your leadership on this, you know, changed, changed the country.
JIM OBERGEFELL: My first thought was, John, I wish you were here. I wish you could experience this. But then I realized that for the first time in my life, as an out gay man, I felt like an equal American.
ARCHIVAL (CNN, 6-27-15):
JIM OBERGEFELL: It’s my hope that the term gay marriage will soon be a thing of the past, that from from this day forward, it will simply be marriage.
RICK HODGES: As I try to tell people, whether you think same-sex marriage is moral or binding in the eyes of God, that’s your personal religious opinion and I’m not going to say you’re right or wrong, but clearly the Constitution extends equal protection to all citizens, regardless of sexual orientation.
NARRATION: For Hodges, the significance of the ruling became clear a week later.
RICK HODGES: I had a friend, he’s been a friend for 40 years, who’s gay, and he called me up before the decision was rendered and said, do you know when you’re going to lose? Because I want to be the first person in Ohio to get married. After the decision came out, every Republican in the state was at his wedding and I just looked out across the audience and I thought, you know, this is pretty remarkable. We’ve got to the point now where this is accepted, and also that this could have happened a lot sooner if it wasn’t for us and the evolutionary process that we had to go through to get to this point.
NARRATION: The Obergefell decision became a catalyst for further activism, a stepping stone in the push for broader equal rights. But it also drew criticism from those who felt the gay rights movement had gone too far.
JIM OBERGEFELL: You know, I think back to June 26, 2015, and there were people that said we’re done, we’re fully equal. But the threat to marriage equality happened within days of that decision.
ARCHIVAL (ABC NEWS, 9-1-15):
KIM DAVIS: Back away from the counter. . .
JIM OBERGEFELL: Kim Davis in Kentucky, the county clerk, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, ignoring that Supreme Court decision, and we’ve had two Supreme Court justices point-blank say they want to overturn Obergefell.
ARCHIVAL (MSNBC, 6-26-22):
NEWS ANCHOR: How seriously should LGBTQ Americans take Justice Thomas’s threat to, quote, reconsider cases like Obergefell?
NARRATION: Despite such concerns, Hodges, who now often joins Obergefell in speaking at schools, is hopeful that the case has made lasting change.
RICK HODGES: I grew up in a conservative community. And I still consider myself a conservative Republican. But if you’re anti-anybody’s rights, you’re on the wrong side of history. What’s most important is recognizing that we’re all part of this experiment, to not just accept our differences, but to celebrate them. That makes this country unique. That’s something special, and that’s what we have to remember, we have to protect and we have to defend.
(END)
