On 10-year anniversary of legal gay marriage in U.S., Obergefell says fight isn’t over

Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court’s landmark same-sex marriage case, urges LGBTQ advocates not to let their guards down.

A decade after the Supreme Court’s historic Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, some advocates fear the fight for marriage equality is far from over. Among them is Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the case, who became the face of the 2015 decision and has continued to advocate for LGBTQ rights.

“Ten years later, I certainly wasn’t expecting to be talking about the threats to marriage equality, the potential for Obergefell to be overturned,” Obergefell told NBC News in an interview.

The 2015 ruling was a turning point for LGBTQ rights. But Obergefell said he fears recent comments from conservative Supreme Court justices may signal a willingness to overturn it, particularly after the court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion.

“For 49 years, people grew up with that right, and then with the proverbial stroke of a pen on that decision, that right was taken away,” Obergefell said. “We have to learn from that.”

In his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe, Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly mentioned Obergefell as a decision that the high court should reconsider, raising alarms among same-sex marriage advocates. Justice Samuel Alito, in a separate 2024 opinion, also expressed concerns about the Obergefell decision, warning that Americans who oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds could be labeled as bigots.