What does the reversal of Roe mean for Obergefell?
Overturning marriage equality is now a present threat. Many of the issues both people of color and LGBTQ+ Americans confronted in President Trump’s first term — health care, unemployment, housing, immigration, voting rights, among others — are front and center again, and on the chopping block. And the fear is palpable.
My friend Pat, who lives in West Palm Beach, Fla., told me, “I think it’s going to go away. I don’t know what’s going to happen to those already married, but there are a lot of benefits.”
“What would that be?” she asked of the result. “A forced divorce?”
Put a ring on it
With this threat looming large, many same-gender couples have been dashing to the altar. The thought of there being many more bureaucrats like former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis — who became famous for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-gender couples in 2015 — becomes a nightmare. This August, she formally petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark decision that made marriage equality the law of the land.
“I told a nephew who’s gay, young, 22, to get married last year because we don’t know,” said my friend Pat.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed the same sentiment. In an August installment of the Raging Moderates podcast, Clinton strongly advised couples to get married before the Supreme Court overturns marriage equality altogether.
“Anybody in a committed relationship out there, in the LGBTQ community, you ought to consider getting married,” she said, “because I don’t think they’ll undo existing marriages, but I fear they will undo the national right.”
Clarence Thomas’s goal
Our currently Trumped-up Supreme Court has been the enabler of anti-marriage activists. Justice Clarence Thomas faulted the Supreme Court for refusing to block marriage equality in Alabama twice — in 2015 and in 2022. Targeting marriage equality has been his goal ever since it became national law.
Shortly after the Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case of 2022, Thomas seized the moment to insert his opinion that “[W]e have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”
Thomas further stated that the landmark decision meant the Court “should reconsider” the court’s past rulings codifying the rights to contraception, same-gender intimacy, and marriage equality.
“Surely, he jests,” I thought, because of Thomas’s interracial marriage, which marriage equality is built upon. Moreover, the slippery slope is one that he, too, could confront, once the Court eliminates federal protection for loving the person you choose.
The irony here is that many of the civil rights advancements that helped Thomas ascend to the highest court in the land are the ones he now wants to dismantle.
Last year, the country celebrated nine years since the Obergefell decision, allowing all Americans nationwide the fundamental right to marry.
However, while Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented in the 2015 Obergefell ruling, the broad public support for same-gender marriage that both parties once embraced has now waned among Republicans.
According to a 2025 Gallup Poll, support for marriage equality among Democrats rose to 88 percent while Republican support, which peaked at 55 percent in 2021 and 2022, dropped to 41 percent, the lowest point since 2016, shortly after the Obergefell decision. With Republicans dominating all branches of government, there is concern that former President Joe Biden’s 2022 Respect for Marriage Act would not be upheld, with the risk that the question of marriage equality would be thrown back to the states.
Four out of 10 judges Trump chose during his first term are unabashedly anti-LGBTQ+. He appointed more than 54 right-wing judges nationwide, and they will remain on the bench long after he’s gone. LGBTQ+ Americans in red states especially have concerns about their marriages and other civil rights being upheld.
Benefits up in the air
There are 1,138 federal benefits and hundreds of state-specific benefits that heterosexual couples take for granted. Denying these benefits to same-gender couples will cause financial instability and immense stress.
“Being a widow, all the federal benefits have benefited me,” said my friend Pat. “I’m on spousal Social Security and not paying taxes on our joint money — is that going to go away?”
Jim Obergefell, not an activist of any sort, never expected to be a cause célèbre. But when he sued his home state of Ohio for refusing to recognize him as the widower of his deceased spouse, the lawsuit made its way to the highest court. Obergefell, then 48, the lead plaintiff in the four marriage equality cases collectively known as Obergefell v. Hodge, now has his legacy hanging in the balance once again.
With victory comes backlash
Ratifying marriage equality was the right thing to do, and it should not be repealed. The victory of Obergefell expanded the nation’s understanding of marriage as a fundamental right awarded to all people. However, if Roe v. Wade can be overturned after 50 years, so can marriage equality, underscoring that no one’s rights can be taken for granted.
Sherry, a married lesbian and retired professor of nursing, said to me, ”I’m aware now that what we take as a right is always conditional.”
Sadly, that’s true.
I have married more than 250 LGBTQ+ couples since marriage equality was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004. Each marriage was an honor to officiate.
When interviewed for Massachusetts’ 20th anniversary of marriage equality, a newsman asked to see my photos. I have hundreds of them. I had to sort them into three piles: Deceased, divorced, and still together.
I never imagined the day would come that such marriages might ever stop, until now.
However, I am reminded of a direct quotation from Jesus’ teachings in both Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:9 that states, “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” Let’s hope for once we do as Jesus says.
Public theologian, syndicated columnist and radio host Rev. Irene Monroe is a founder and member emeritus of several national LBGTQ+ black and religious organizations and served as the National Religious Coordinator of the African American Roundtable at the Center for LGBTQ and Religion Studies in Religion at Pacific School of Religion. A graduate of Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary, she served as a pastor in New Jersey before studying for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow at Harvard Divinity School and serving as the head teaching fellow of the Rev. Peter Gomes at Memorial Church. She has taught at Harvard, Andover Newton Theological Seminary, Episcopal Divinity School and the University of New Hampshire. Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College’s Research Library on the History of Women in America.