The freedom to marry the person you love is one of the most settled expectations in American life — and one of the least secure. Right now it rests on a single 5–4 Supreme Court decision that sitting justices have openly invited the Court to reconsider. This right writes it into the Constitution itself, where no Court and no state can quietly take it back.
Marriage equality became the law of the land in 2015 — but by the narrowest possible margin. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court held 5–4 that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to marry. Flip one vote and the outcome flips with it.Check it
That margin matters more now than it did then. In his 2022 Dobbs concurrence, Justice Thomas explicitly urged the Court to "reconsider" Obergefell along with other substantive-due-process precedents — and litigants have since asked the Court to do exactly that.Check it
The ground is still mined. Roughly 35 states never repealed their same-sex marriage bans; those laws lie dormant only so long as Obergefell stands, and would snap back into force the day it falls.Check it
Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022 — but it only requires states to recognize marriages performed elsewhere. It does not require any state to issue a license. If Obergefell falls, a couple could be legally married and unable to marry in their own state.Check it
This Constitution makes the freedom to marry a right on its face: every person may marry any consenting adult they choose — regardless of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion. It no longer depends on a 5–4 reading of an old amendment. It's written down.
A marriage lawful where it was performed must be recognized everywhere, and by the federal government. No state may refuse a license on any of those grounds, and no future Court can quietly reinterpret the right out of existence.
States still run the ordinary civil machinery — age, licensing, property, divorce — but only if the rules apply equally to every couple. No religious institution is ever forced to perform a ceremony against its doctrine; the guarantee is civil marriage: recognized, equal, and secure.
It is self-executing — courts apply it directly, with no implementing statute required. Obergefell, written into the text, and broader.
This is your country’s law. Help shape the next draft of it.
