DeBoer v. Snyder | |
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Argued April 28, 2015 | |
Full case name | April DeBoer, individually and as parent and next friend of N.D.-R, R.D.-R., and J.D.-R, minors, and Jayne Rowse, individually and as parent and next friend of N.D.-R, R.D.-R., and J.D.-R, minors, Plaintiffs-Petitioners v. Richard Snyder, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Michigan, Bill Schuette, in his official capacity as Michigan Attorney General, and Lisa Brown in her official capacity as Oakland County Clerk, Defendants-Respondents |
Related cases | Bourke v. Beshear , Obergefell v. Hodges , Tanco v. Haslam , Love v. Beshear . |
Case history | |
Prior | DeBoer v. Snyder, 973 F. Supp. 2d 757 (E.D. Mich. 2014); reversed, 772 F.3d 388 (6th Cir. 2014); cert. granted, 135 S. Ct. 1040 (2015). |
Court membership | |
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Laws applied | |
U.S. Const. amend. XIV |
DeBoer v. Snyder is a lawsuit that was filed by April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse on January 23, 2012, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, challenging Michigan's ban on adoption by same-sex couples so they can jointly adopt their children. In August 2012, Judge Bernard A. Friedman invited the couple to amend their suit to challenge the state's ban on same-sex marriage, "the underlying issue". [1] Following a hearing on October 16, 2013, Friedman scheduled a trial that ran from February 25 to March 7, 2014. On March 21, Judge Friedman issued his ruling overturning the ban. [2] On March 22, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit placed a temporary hold on Judge Friedman's ruling. The appeal was argued on August 6. On November 6, the Sixth Circuit reversed Judge Friedman and upheld Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage. [3]
The decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, on January 16, 2015, consolidated this case with three others and agreed to review the case. Oral arguments were heard on April 28, 2015, and the Supreme Court struck down the state's same-sex marriage ban on June 26, 2015. [4] [5]
On January 23, 2012, a lesbian couple filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on behalf of themselves and three children, challenging the state's ban on adoption by same-sex couples so they can jointly adopt their children. [6] The women are April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, both nurses. One has an adopted son and the other two adopted daughters, all with special needs. [7] At the time of filing, Michigan law restricted second-parent adoption to married couples and did not license or recognize same-sex marriages. [8]
In August 2012, Judge Bernard A. Friedman invited the couple to amend their suit to challenge the state's ban on same-sex marriage, "the underlying issue". [1] They did so on September 7, 2012. [9] To the original defendants, the governor and attorney-general of Michigan, they added the Oakland County Clerk.
The plaintiffs were originally represented by three private attorneys, Dana Nessel, Carole Stanyar and Kenneth M. Mogill, along with Wayne State University Distinguished Professor of Law Robert A. Sedler, an experienced litigator in civil rights cases. [10] In January 2014, attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders joined them. [11]
On March 7, 2013, after hearing arguments in the case, Friedman announced that he would delay ruling pending the outcome of two same-sex marriage cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry . [12] National LGBT advocacy groups had recommended the delay. [8] On July 1, citing the recent Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor, he denied the state officials' motion to dismiss the suit. [13] Friedman heard arguments on motions in the case on October 16, 2013, and said he was unable to rule on the basis of the arguments. He said: "I'm in the middle. I have to decide this as a matter of law. I intend to do so." An attorney for one of the defendants, Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown, said she was eager to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples as soon as the law allowed her to do so. [14] At the end of that hearing, Friedman scheduled the trial for February 25, 2014. [15] On a motion by the plaintiffs, and over the objections of the defense, Friedman agreed on January 3, 2014, to divide the trial in two, reserving for a second phase, if needed, all discussion of the level of scrutiny appropriate to Michigan's denial of adoption and marriage rights to same-sex couples. [16]
The plaintiffs called witnesses from February 25, 2014, to February 28, 2014.
Dr. George Chauncey, who as a professor of history and American studies at Yale University and co-director of the Yale Research Initiative on the History of Sexualities had previously testified in the LGBT case Hollingsworth v. Perry , was expected to testify but had to cancel. He submitted written testimony.
The defense called witnesses from March 3, 2014, to March 6, 2014.
The nine-day trial concluded on March 7 after Kenneth M. Mogill provided the plaintiffs' summation and Kristin Heyse, an assistant attorney general, spoke for the defense. [7] Attorney Michael Pitt spoke separately for defendant Brown, the county clerk, and joined the defense in urging Friedman, should he rule for the plaintiffs, to stay his ruling pending appeal. [35] Judge Friedman said he hoped to rule within two weeks. [7] [36]
On March 21, after 5 p.m. EDT, Judge Friedman ruled for the plaintiffs without staying enforcement of his decision. [37] In ruling that the Michigan Marriage Amendment violated equal protection, Friedman found it unnecessary to address the Due Process Clause or levels of scrutiny higher than rational review. [38] The state defendants asserted that the same-sex marriage ban furthered legitimate state interests in providing an optimal environment for child rearing, proceeding with caution before altering the traditional definition of marriage, and upholding tradition and morality. [39] Friedman wrote that the first interest could logically be used to "require that only rich, educated, suburban-dwelling, married Asians may marry, to the exclusion of all other heterosexual couples." [40] He wrote that an interest in proceeding with caution can be asserted in any setting and that "any deprivation of constitutional rights calls for prompt rectification". [41]
Regarding morality, Friedman wrote:
Many Michigan residents have religious convictions whose principles ... inform their own viewpoints about marriage. Nonetheless, these views cannot strip other citizens of the guarantees of equal protection under the law. The same Constitution that protects the free exercise of one’s faith in deciding whether to solemnize certain marriages rather than others, is the same Constitution that prevents the state from either mandating adherence to an established religion ... or enforcing private moral or religious beliefs without an accompanying secular purpose. [42]
The state defendants cited Windsor v. United States to maintain that states still hold exclusive power to define marriage. Friedman wrote that Windsor "noted that this power ... must respect the constitutional rights of persons," citing Loving v. Virginia . [43] He wrote that Windsor and Loving "stand for the proposition that, without some overriding legitimate interest, the state cannot use its domestic relations authority to legislate families out of existence." [44]
At the time the ruling was handed down, most county clerks offices in the state had closed. [45] Michigan Attorney General Schuette announced he was filing an emergency request for a stay of the decision pending appeal. [46] Marriages for same-sex couples began the following morning. [47]
DeBoer v. Snyder was appealed to the U.S Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit on March 21, 2014. The next day, after 323 marriage licenses had been issued in four Michigan counties, the appellate court placed a temporary hold on the district court's order allowing same-sex marriage through March 26. [48] After hearing arguments on March 25, an appellate court panel voted 2–1 to approve the state attorney general's motion to extend the stay indefinitely until appeals have concluded. The court also decided to expedite the appeal. [49] A three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit heard the appeal on August 6 along with similar cases from Kentucky (Bourke v. Beshear and Love v. Beshear), Ohio (Henry v. Himes and Obergefell v. Himes), and Tennessee ( Tanco v. Haslam ). [50]
On November 6, 2014, the Sixth Circuit ruled 2–1 that Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage does not violate the constitution. It said it was bound by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1972 action in a similar case, Baker v. Nelson , which dismissed a same-sex couple's marriage claim "for want of a substantial federal question".
The majority ruling said the case was about "change" and "how best to handle it under the Constitution". It noted that the question seemed to be not if, but when and how, this would happen for same-sex marriage. The ruling concluded that Baker had not yet been explicitly overturned and until addressed by the Supreme Court in some future case, there were no legal grounds at present to allow it to be ignored or deemed redundant, since the court could not attempt to anticipate what the changing position of society or the Supreme Court might be in future. Quoting Tully v. Griffin Inc and Hicks, the court noted that it was also not for them to engage in new "doctrinal development" without a basis in new guidance from the Supreme Court. Nor could the court draw conclusions that contradict precedents in previous rulings on the matter.
The ruling noted that the rejection of some past appeals by the Supreme Court were not necessarily a sign that the appeal was ill-founded, and such meaning should not be read into them ("this kind of action - or inaction - imports no expression upon the merits of the case, as the bar has been told many times"). The ruling examined various dubious bases often allowed by States for marriage, and the extent of sanctimonious expressions used in discussing and practicing marriage, and the deference owed to individual states' legislative power to examine such questions at their own pace, and the fact that just one year had passed from the first legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States to the matters leading to this case. It concluded that "what we are left with, is [that] by creating a status (marriage) and subsidizing it (with privileges) the States created an incentive for two people who procreate together to stay together for the purposes of rearing offspring". The court also described the Supreme Court's 2013 ruling in Windsor as one that should be seen less as an affirmation of same-sex marriage, and instead, as a case concerning Federal law encroachment upon State law, in which it had been confirmed that it was not the place of the Federal legislation to effectively seek to determine for all States how they should each treat same-sex marriage. Writing for the majority, Judge Jeffrey Sutton also dismissed the arguments made on behalf of same-sex couples in this case: "Not one of the plaintiffs' theories, however, makes the case for constitutionalizing the definition of marriage and for removing the issue from the place it has been since the founding: in the hands of state voters."
Dissenting, Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey wrote: "Because the correct result is so obvious, one is tempted to speculate that the majority has purposefully taken the contrary position to create the circuit split regarding the legality of same-sex marriage that could prompt a grant of certiorari by the Supreme Court and an end to the uncertainty of status and the interstate chaos that the current discrepancy in state laws threatens." [51]
The same-sex couples filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on November 17. They presented a single question for the court's consideration: "Whether a state violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by denying same-sex couples the right to marry." [52] On November 24, Attorney General Schuette filed a brief with the Supreme Court supporting the same-sex couples' petition for certiorari. [53]
On January 16, 2015, the Supreme Court consolidated this case as Obergefell v. Hodges , 576 U.S. ___(2015), with three other same-sex marriage cases – Tanco v. Haslam (Tennessee), Obergefell v. Hodges (Ohio), and Bourke v. Beshear (Kentucky) – challenging state laws that prohibited same-sex marriage and agreed to review the case. [54] It set a briefing schedule to be completed April 17 [54] and scheduled oral argument for April 28, 2015. [55] The court asked the parties to address two questions: "1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a 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?" [56] [57]
The United States Supreme Court had heard oral arguments on April 28, 2015.
On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 5–4 decision that the Fourteenth Amendment requires all states to grant same-sex marriages and recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states. The Court overturned its prior decision in Baker v. Nelson, which the Sixth Circuit had invoked as precedent.
The Obergefell v. Hodges decision came on the second anniversary of the United States v. Windsor ruling that struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denied federal recognition of same-sex marriages. It also came on the twelfth anniversary of Lawrence v. Texas which struck down sodomy laws in 13 states. Each justice's opinion on Obergefell was consistent with their opinion in Windsor. In both cases, Justice Kennedy authored the majority opinion and was considered the "swing vote". [58]
The availability of legally recognized same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state (Massachusetts) in 2004 to all fifty states in 2015 through various court rulings, state legislation, and direct popular votes. States each have separate marriage laws, which must adhere to rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States that recognize marriage as a fundamental right guaranteed by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as first established in the 1967 landmark civil rights case of Loving v. Virginia.
Michigan Proposal 04-2 of 2004, is an amendment to the Michigan Constitution that made it unconstitutional for the state to recognize or perform same-sex marriages or civil unions. The referendum was approved by 59% of the voters. The amendment faced multiple legal challenges and was finally overturned in Obergefell v. Hodges by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Florida since January 6, 2015, as a result of a ruling in Brenner v. Scott from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. The court ruled the state's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional on August 21, 2014. The order was stayed temporarily. State attempts at extending the stay failed, with the U.S. Supreme Court denying further extension on December 19, 2014. In addition, a state court ruling in Pareto v. Ruvin allowed same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses in Miami-Dade County on the afternoon of January 5, 2015. In another state case challenging the state's denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, a Monroe County court in Huntsman v. Heavilin stayed enforcement of its decision pending appeal and the stay expired on January 6, 2015. Florida was the 35th U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Hawaii since December 2, 2013. The Hawaii State Legislature held a special session beginning on October 28, 2013, and passed the Hawaii Marriage Equality Act legalizing same-sex marriage. Governor Neil Abercrombie signed the legislation on November 13, and same-sex couples began marrying on December 2, making Hawaii the fifteenth U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage. Hawaii also allows both same-sex and opposite-sex couples to formalize their relationships legally in the form of civil unions and reciprocal beneficiary relationships. Civil unions provide the same rights, benefits, and obligations of marriage at the state level, while reciprocal beneficiary relationships provide a more limited set of rights. When Hawaii's civil union law took effect at the start of 2012, same-sex marriages established in other jurisdictions were considered civil unions in Hawaii.
Bernard Alvin Friedman is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people in the U.S. state of Michigan enjoy the same rights as non-LGBTQ people. Michigan in June 2024 was ranked "the most welcoming U.S. state for LGBT individuals". Same-sex sexual activity is legal in Michigan under the U.S. Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, although the state legislature has not repealed its sodomy law. Same-sex marriage was legalised in accordance with 2015's Obergefell v. Hodges decision. Discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity is unlawful since July 2022, was re-affirmed by the Michigan Supreme Court - under and by a 1976 statewide law, that explicitly bans discrimination "on the basis of sex". The Michigan Civil Rights Commission have also ensured that members of the LGBT community are not discriminated against and are protected in the eyes of the law since 2018 and also legally upheld by the Michigan Supreme Court in 2022. In March 2023, a bill passed the Michigan Legislature by a majority vote - to formally codify both "sexual orientation and gender identity" anti-discrimination protections embedded within Michigan legislation. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the bill on March 16, 2023. In 2024, Michigan repealed “the last ban on commercial surrogacy within the US” - for individuals and couples and reformed the parentage laws, that acknowledges same sex couples and their families with children.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Michigan since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015. The U.S. state of Michigan had previously banned the recognition of same-sex unions in any form after a popular vote added an amendment to the Constitution of Michigan in 2004. A statute enacted in 1996 also banned both the licensing of same-sex marriages and the recognition of same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Louisiana since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015. The court held that the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples is unconstitutional, invalidating Louisiana's ban on same-sex marriage. The ruling clarified conflicting court rulings on whether state officials are obligated to license same-sex marriages. Governor Bobby Jindal confirmed on June 28 that Louisiana would comply with the ruling once the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed its decision in a Louisiana case, which the Fifth Circuit did on July 1. Jindal then said the state would not comply with the ruling until the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana reversed its judgment, which it did on July 2. All parishes now issue marriage licenses in accordance with federal law.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Ohio since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, a landmark decision in which the court struck down the state's statutory and constitutional bans on same-sex marriage on June 26, 2015. The case was named after plaintiff Jim Obergefell, who sued the state of Ohio after officials refused to recognize his marriage on the death certificate of his husband. Same-sex marriages were performed in Ohio beginning shortly after the Supreme Court released its ruling, as local officials implemented the order.
Hollingsworth v. Perry was a series of United States federal court cases that re-legalized same-sex marriage in the state of California. The case began in 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which found that banning same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the law. This decision overturned California ballot initiative Proposition 8, which had banned same-sex marriage. After the State of California refused to defend Proposition 8, the official sponsors of Proposition 8 intervened and appealed to the Supreme Court. The case was litigated during the governorships of both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, and was thus known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger and Perry v. Brown, respectively. As Hollingsworth v. Perry, it eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which held that, in line with prior precedent, the official sponsors of a ballot initiative measure did not have Article III standing to appeal an adverse federal court ruling when the state refused to do so.
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.
John J. Bursch was the 10th Michigan Solicitor General. He was appointed by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette on February 28, 2011. Prior to being Michigan Solicitor General, Bursch served as chair of the Appellate Practice and Public-Affairs Litigation Groups at Warner Norcross & Judd. Bursch argued in more than 6% of all the cases the U.S. Supreme Court heard during his tenure as solicitor general. Bursch returned to private practice at Warner Norcross & Judd in December 2013, and founded his own law firm in 2016, Bursch Law.
Until 2017, laws related to LGBTQ+ couples adopting children varied by state. Some states granted full adoption rights to same-sex couples, while others banned same-sex adoption or only allowed one partner in a same-sex relationship to adopt the biological child of the other.
The lead cases on same-sex marriage in Kentucky are Bourke v. Beshear, and its companion case Love v. Beshear. In Bourke, a U.S. district court found that the Equal Protection Clause requires Kentucky to recognize valid same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. In Love, the same court found that this same clause renders Kentucky's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Both decisions were stayed and consolidated upon appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard oral arguments in both cases on August 6, 2014. On November 6, the Sixth Circuit upheld Kentucky's ban on same-sex marriage.
Tanco v. Haslam was the lead case in the dispute of same-sex marriage in Tennessee. A U.S. District Court granted a preliminary injunction requiring the state to recognize the marriages of the plaintiffs, three same-sex couples. The court found the equal protection analysis used in Bourke v. Beshear, a case dealing with a comparable Kentucky statute "especially persuasive." On April 25, 2014, that injunction was stayed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Tanco was appealed to the Sixth Circuit, which reversed the district court and upheld Tennessee's refusal to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions on November 6.
De Leon v. Perry was a federal lawsuit challenging Texas marriage law, specifically the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and corresponding statutes. A U.S. district court ruled in favor of the plaintiff same-sex couples on February 26, 2014, granting their motion for a preliminary injunction. The state defendants filed an interlocutory appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, as the disposition on the motion was not a final ruling in the case. On April 14, 2014, the plaintiffs filed a motion for an expedited hearing, which was denied on May 21, 2014. The plaintiffs filed another motion for an expedited hearing on October 6, 2014, after the Supreme Court of the United States denied appeals in other marriage equality cases, and the motion was granted on October 7, 2014, setting a hearing for November 2014. However, on October 27, 2014, the Fifth Circuit set oral arguments for January 9, 2015.
Wolf v. Walker is a federal lawsuit filed in February 2014 that challenged Wisconsin's refusal to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, its refusal to recognize same-sex marriages established in other jurisdictions, and related statutes. In June 2014, Judge Barbara Crabb of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin ruled for the plaintiffs. In the week before she stayed her decision, county clerks in 60 of the state's 72 counties issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples and some performed marriage ceremonies for them. The state appealed her decision to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed her opinion in a unanimous decision on September 4. The state requested a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court, which was denied on October 6. Same-sex marriages resumed after the Seventh Circuit issued its mandate the next day.
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Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled 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 Constitution. The 5–4 ruling requires all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Insular Areas to perform and recognize the marriages of same-sex couples on the same terms and conditions as the marriages of opposite-sex couples, with equal rights and responsibilities. Prior to Obergefell, same-sex marriage had already been established by statute, court ruling, or voter initiative in 36 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam.
Accidental Activists is a 2016 American documentary film directed by Mandi Wright. It was written and produced by Kathy Kieliszewski, in conjunction with the Detroit Free Press. The film follows April DeBoer and her partner Jayne Rowse, who went to court and challenged the state of Michigan's adoption law. When the judge told them they would lose their case, he suggested they instead challenge the state's same-sex marriage ban. They consider themselves "accidental activists," meaning they filed lawsuits not to further a cause, but because of the way the bans affected their lives. The documentary premiered on April 2, 2016, at the Freep Film Festival, and went on to screen at several other film fests around the country. It was later shown on Detroit Public TV.