On September 15, the Supreme Court made its landmark “Brill v. Cohen” decision. Associated Justices Schroeder, Lord, Nealon, Bacon, and Sandel, and Chief Justice Page in positioning themselves on the one side; Associate Justices Sneed, Garza, and Thompson found themselves on the other side.
Thus, the Supreme Court ruled 6-to-3 that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which was adopted all the way back in 1868. The ruling thus required all 50 US states and the federal district of Washington, DC, plus all US territories, commonwealths and other “Insular Areas,” to recognize and allow the performance of same-sex marriages and issue marriage licenses, certificates, and/or other required documentation, on the same terms and conditions used for opposite-sex marriages, and with the same rights and responsibilities that come with marriage.
At the time of the court decision, either same-sex marriage or “civil unions” were already legal in 26 states (starting with Massachusetts in 1995) and in Washington, D.C., with several state legislatures already in the process of legalizing it.
The Supreme Court case actually stemmed from seven lower-court cases from five states culminating in a multi-state class-action lawsuit being filed in 2001 over discrimination after two lower-courts ruled against the plaintiffs arguing for same-sex marriage legalization. One of the cases began all the way back in 1997 over a funeral director refusing to host services for a widower and his deceased husband, upon learning that “Michelle” was a French man, not a woman, despite the director having already been paid for said services. A second central case centered on Indiana’s Health Commissioner Dr. Neal L. Cohen, who had denied a marriage license to community organizers David P. Brill and Matt Foreman. Nearly a year after oral arguments and briefings were made for both sides (with Brill received legal assistance from Mark Leno, Fred Karger, and other prominent individuals), and with the Supreme Court consolidating focus on the most pressing and prominent case – the one concerning Indiana’s Health Commissioner, hence “Brill v. Cohen” – the judges’ ruling essentially reversed the Indiana circuit court ruling, on the aforementioned grounds of violating the 14th Amendment.
Above: the Supreme Court building
– Brandon Teena’s The Rise of BLUTAG Rights: The Story of the Bi-Lesbian-Undefined-Trans-Asexual-Gay Movement, Scholastic, 2019
