The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), also referred to by proponents as the Marriage Protection Amendment, was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would legally define marriage as a union of one man and one woman. The FMA would also prevent judicial extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples.
In response to court action in a number of states, the United States federal government and a number of state legislatures passed or attempted to pass legislation either prohibiting or allowing same-sex marriage or other types of same-sex unions.
This article summarizes the same-sex marriage laws of states in the United States. Via the case Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States legalized same-sex marriage in a decision that applies nationwide, with the exception of American Samoa and sovereign tribal nations.
Nebraska Initiative 416, officially titled "Ban Same-Sex Marriage Act", was a 2000 ballot initiative that amended the Nebraska Constitution to make it unconstitutional for the state to recognize or perform same-sex marriage, same-sex civil unions or domestic partnerships. The referendum was approved on November 7, 2000, by 70% of the voters. The initiative has since been struck down in federal court and same-sex marriage is now legally recognized in the state of Nebraska.
Georgia Constitutional Amendment 1 of 2004, is an amendment to the Georgia Constitution that previously made it unconstitutional for the state to recognize or perform same-sex marriages or civil unions. The referendum was approved by 76% of the voters.
2006 Virginia Question 1, the Marshall-Newman Amendment is an amendment to the Constitution of Virginia that defines marriage as solely between one man and one woman and bans recognition of any legal status "approximat[ing] the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage". The amendment was ratified by 57% of the voters on November 7, 2006. It became part of the state Constitution as Section 15-A of Article 1. In 2014, the amendment was ruled unconstitutional in Bostic v. Schaefer.
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in Nevada since October 9, 2014, when a federal district court judge issued an injunction against enforcement of Nevada's same-sex marriage ban, acting on order from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit had ruled two days earlier that the state's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Same-sex marriage was previously banned by an amendment to the Constitution of Nevada, which was approved by voters in 2002. The statutory ban on same-sex marriages was repealed by the Nevada Legislature in 2017, and the constitutional ban was repealed by voters in 2020 by 62–38 percent.
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in North Carolina since October 10, 2014, when a U.S. District Court judge ruled in General Synod of the United Church of Christ v. Cooper that the state's denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples was unconstitutional. Governor Pat McCrory and Attorney General Roy Cooper had acknowledged that a recent ruling in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision not to hear an appeal in that case established the unconstitutionality of North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage. State legislators sought without success to intervene in lawsuits to defend the state's ban on same-sex marriage. North Carolina was the 28th U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals in the U.S. state of Alabama have federal protections, but still face legal challenges and discrimination on the state level that is not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. LGBTQ rights in Alabama—a Republican Party stronghold located in both the Deep South and greater Bible Belt—are severely limited in comparison to other states. As one of the most socially conservative states in the U.S., Alabama is one of the only two states along with neighboring Mississippi where opposition to same-sex marriage outnumbers support.
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in Pennsylvania since May 20, 2014, when a U.S. federal district court judge ruled that the state's 1996 statutory ban on recognizing same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Governor Tom Corbett announced the following day that he would not appeal the decision. Pennsylvania had previously prohibited the recognition of same-sex marriage by statute since 1996, but had never added such a ban to its State Constitution.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Alabama since June 26, 2015, in accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. Not all counties immediately complied with the ruling, copying behavior from the civil rights era when they had refused to perform interracial marriages. A year after the Supreme Court ruling, twelve counties would either issue licenses to no one or only to opposite-sex couples. By 2017, this number had dropped to only eight counties, with all eight refusing to issue licenses to anyone. In May 2019, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill replacing the option that counties issue marriage licenses and perform marriage ceremonies with the requirement of counties to record marriage certificates. Subsequently, all counties complied and announced on August 29, 2019 that they would record marriage certificates for interracial and same-sex couples. Previously, Alabama had banned the licensing of same-sex marriages and the recognition of such marriages from other jurisdictions by executive order in 1996, by statute in 1998, and by constitutional amendment in June 2006.
The Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage in the states and most territories did not legalize same-sex marriage on Indian reservations. In the United States, Congress has legal authority over tribal reservations. Thus, unless Congress passes a law regarding same-sex marriage that is applicable to tribal governments, federally recognized American Indian tribes have the legal right to form their own marriage laws. As such, the individual laws of the various United States federally recognized Native American tribes may set limits on same-sex marriage under their jurisdictions. At least ten reservations specifically prohibit same-sex marriage and do not recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions; these reservations remain the only parts of the United States to enforce explicit bans on same-sex couples marrying.
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in Indiana since October 6, 2014. The state had previously restricted marriage to different-sex couples by statute in 1986. Legislation passed in 1997 denied recognition to same-sex relationships established in other jurisdictions. A lawsuit challenging the state's refusal to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Baskin v. Bogan, won a favorable ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on June 25, 2014. Until the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the district court's ruling on June 27, most Indiana counties issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling in Baskin on September 4. A ruling in Bowling v. Pence stated that the state must recognize same-sex marriages performed out-of-state and the decision was stayed until the Seventh Circuit ruled on the merits in similar cases. It also stated that the ruling would remain stayed if the circuit court stayed its decision in the related cases.
Citizens for Equal Protection v. Bruning, 455 F.3d 859, was a federal lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska and decided on appeal by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. It challenged the federal constitutionality of Nebraska Initiative Measure 416, a 2000 ballot initiative that amended the Nebraska Constitution to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages, civil unions, and other same-sex relationships.
The state of Texas, located in the south in the United States, contains a large community of LGBTQ+ citizens. More specifically, the city Austin, Texas has the third largest population of LGBTQ+ people based on the size of the city. Austin, Texas, and Texas in general, is home to several icons of the LGBTQ+ community such as Karamo Brown, co-founder of the LGBTQ+ group "Queer Eye" and Demi Lovato, a queer artist and activist. There is history of heavy violence against the LGBTQ+ community within Texas such as riots, as well as liberation and parades celebrating those within the community.
North Carolina Amendment 1 is a partially overturned legislatively referred constitutional amendment in North Carolina that amended the Constitution of North Carolina to add ARTICLE XIV, Section 6, which prohibit the state from recognizing or performing same-sex marriages, civil unions or civil union equivalents by defining male–female marriage as "the only domestic legal union" considered valid or recognized in the state. It did not prohibit domestic partnerships in the state and also constitutionally protected same-sex and opposite-sex prenuptial agreements, which is the only part that is still in effect today. On May 8, 2012, North Carolina voters approved the amendment, 61% to 39%, with a voter turnout of 35%. On May 23, 2012, the amendment took effect.
This article contains a timeline of significant events regarding same-sex marriage in the United States. On June 26, 2015, the landmark US Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges effectively ended restrictions on same-sex marriage in the United States.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in South Dakota since June 26, 2015 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that the U.S. Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. Attorney General Marty Jackley issued a statement critical of the ruling but said that the state would comply and recognize same-sex marriages. Previously, South Dakota had restricted marriage to the "union of a man and a woman" both by statute and in its State Constitution.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015. Previously, the U.S. state of Texas had banned same-sex marriage both by statute since 1973 and in its State Constitution since 2005. On February 26, 2014, Judge Orlando Luis Garcia of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas found that Texas's ban on same-sex marriages was unconstitutional. On April 22, 2014, a state court came to the same conclusion. Both cases were appealed. The district court's decision was appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but before that court could issue a ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all same-sex marriage bans in the United States in Obergefell on June 26, 2015. Within a few months of the court ruling, all counties had started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, except for Irion County, which announced in 2020 that it would begin issuing licenses to same-sex couples, making it the last county in the United States to comply with the ruling.
In the United States, the history of same-sex marriage dates from the early 1940s, when the first lawsuits seeking legal recognition of same-sex relationships brought the question of civil marriage rights and benefits for same-sex couples to public attention though they proved unsuccessful. However marriage wasn't a request for the LGBTQ movement until the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Washington (1987). The subject became increasingly prominent in U.S. politics following the 1993 Hawaii Supreme Court decision in Baehr v. Miike that suggested the possibility that the state's prohibition might be unconstitutional. That decision was met by actions at both the federal and state level to restrict marriage to male-female couples, notably the enactment at the federal level of the Defense of Marriage Act.
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