First state to allow gay marriage
20 years ago, same-sex marriage in Massachusetts opened a door for LGBTQ rights nationwide
Bonauto, who has been an attorney with GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, since , said she was a “mess” of emotions at her clients’ wedding and started crying before the ceremony even started. But the most powerful moment, she recalled, came when the minister officially married the couple.
“In that packed church that day, when the minister said, ‘By the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ — those are words no one had heard before — the place went wild,” Bonauto told NBC News. “I felt chills. I proceed to feel chills when I hear that, because that is just such a statement of belonging in this culture. It’s not the only one, but boy, it was certainly a statement of non-belonging to be excluded from marriage.”
Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall wrote in the majority opinion that paved the way for Compton and Wilson’s wedding, that marriage is “a vital social institution” that “imposes weighty legal, financial, and social obligations.”
“The question before u
The Journey to Marriage Equality in the Joined States
The road to nationwide marriage equality was a long one, spanning decades of United States history and culminating in victory in June Throughout the long fight for marriage equality, HRC was at the forefront.
Volunteer with HRC
From gathering supporters in small towns across the country to rallying in front of the Supreme Court of the Merged States, we gave our all to ensure every person, regardless of whom they love, is established equally under the law.
A Growing Call for Equality
Efforts to legalize same-sex marriage began to pop up across the country in the s, and with it challenges on the state and national levels. Civil unions for homosexual couples existed in many states but created a separate but equal typical. At the federal level, couples were denied access to more than 1, federal rights and responsibilities associated with the institution, as well as those denied by their given state. The Defense of Marriage Act was signed into law in and defined marriage by the federal government as between a man and
Nevada becomes first articulate to recognize same-sex attracted marriage in express constitution
Nevada voters overturned an year-old disallow on same-sex marriage, making the express the first to enshrine gay couples’ right to commit in its constitution.
Question 2 on Nevada ballots asked voters whether they back an amendment noticing marriage “as between couples regardless of gender.”
The “Marriage Regardless of Gender Amendment” also asked if religious organizations and clergy retained the right “to oppose to solemnize a marriage.”
The results were 62 percent in favor and 38 percent against, according to the Nevada secretary of mention, with more than three-fourths of the votes counted.
“It feels good that we let the voters decide,” Equality Nevada President Chris Davin told NBC News. “The people said this, not judges or lawmakers. This was direct democracy — it’s how everything should be.”
It was a voter referendum in that originally changed the Nevada Constitution to define marriage as between “a male and female person.”
A domestic partnership regulation was passed by the Legislature in , overriding a
Before same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide, couples came to Decorah
Jessica Cummins and C.J. Lucke decided to get married in But Cummins was living in Alabama and Lucke was in California, and neither state had legalized same sex marriage.
So Lucke had to execute a little bit of research.
"So Massachusetts was doing same sex marriage; they were the first one. I thought for sure, like California, Hawaii, that these would be the states. And so I Google online and I get Iowa," she said.
In April , Iowa became the third state legalize same-sex marriage, and the first outside of the northeast to perform so. Lucke stumbled on “Welcome in Decorah," a website with information on how same-sex couples could come to the northeast Iowa town for their weddings. Lucke quickly got in touch with the website’s founder.
"I said, 'we're going to come and elope. We don't realize anyone. Can you aid us?'" Lucke said. "And so she got the officiant who's now passed away, but he was a great guy. She and her husband were our witnesses. There was a guy who played guitar that was a friend of theirs."