On February 10, 2014, four same-sex couples and one of the couples' adopted children filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that Ohio's ban on same sex marriage and the manner in which that ban was applied were unconstitutional under the Due Process and Full Faith and Credit Clauses of the United States Constitution. Specifically, several of the couples were expecting children and under Ohio law at the time, only one parent would be recorded on the birth certificate of the children. Plaintiffs requested that the court declare the relevant sections of the Ohio Constitution unconstitutional and issue injunctive relief ensuring that the couples be permitted to record both parents' names on the birth certificates of their children.
On April 14, 2014, Judge Timothy Black issued a ruling holding unconstitutional Ohio's ban on recognition of same-sex marriages from other states, and requiring Ohio to recognize all such marriages. The defendants moved for a stay against the injunction the next day. On April 16th, Judge Black granted in part the defendants' motion for stay of injunction pending appeal; he stayed the application of the unconstitutionality to non-plaintiff same-sex couples but did not stay the injunctive relief provided to the named plaintiffs.
The defendants appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on May 9, 2014. On November 6, 2014, the Sixth Circuit ruled on this and along with cases from four other states: DeBoer v. Snyder (
PB-MI-0004), Obergefell v. Hodges (
PB-OH-0003), Love v. Beshear (
PB-KY-0001), and Tanco v. Haslam (
PB-TN-0005). The Sixth Circuit was unwilling to find a constitutional basis to deny states' authority to define marriage. On the Due Process and Equal Protection claims raised in this case, the court found that the bans were plausibly rational, and neither ban was in violation of the Constitution or unlawful due to illegal animus or discrimination. It also held that "[i]f it is constitutional for a State to define marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, it is also constitutional for the State to stand by that definition with respect to couples married in other States or countries." (DeBoer v. Snyder). Accordingly, the Sixth Circuit upheld the same-sex marriage bans in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari review of all the Sixth Circuit cases on January 16, 2015, in
Overgefell v. Hodges. The Court rephrased the questions presented as: 1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license marriage between two people of the same sex? 2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?
On June 26, 2015, the Court reversed in an opinion by Justice Kennedy. The right to marry is fundamental, the Court held, and it demeans gay and lesbian couples to deprive them of access to marriage. The Fourteenth Amendment therefore does not allow states to ban same-sex marriage. Justice Kennedy was joined without further writing by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor. Each of the four dissenters—Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito—wrote separately.
After the Supreme Court’s decision, the District Court lifted the stay off the injunction, requiring Ohio to recognize same-sex marriages. On November 2, 2015, the District Court entered a final judgment. The court declared that Ohio’s marriage recognition statutes violated the Fourteenth Amendment and permanently enjoined the defendants from enforcing those statutes or denying same-sex couples the all of the rights, protections, and benefits of marriage provided by Ohio law. The court also ordered defendants to issue birth certificates listing both same-sex parents on their child’s birth certificates, as well as to provide instructions on how to complete the forms to allow parents to choose their title (mother, father, parent) and gender (male, female). The case is now closed.
Chris MacColl - 04/15/2014
Nadji Allan - 11/12/2014
- 06/26/2015
Justin Hill - 11/26/2019
compress summary
