John Arthur Case

The uprising of this event all started with a homosexual male couple, James Obergefell and John Arthur. John Arthur was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, 21 years after the couple had been together. The results of Arthur’s illness was a nation-wide “Ice-bucket challenge” that got millions of people engaged in the situation. A majority of the country fell in love with this couple. While they were preparing for Arthur’s death, they wanted to get married before it was too late. The couple currently lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, where same-sex marriage is not prohibited. The two men flew to Baltimore Washington International Airport, Maryland, where James and Arthur were eloped right there on the plane. They also wanted to get his death sentences ready to go, and this is when they found out that the state of Ohio refused to put James Obergefell’s name on John Arthur 's death certificate. The case decision came on the 2nd anniversary of the ruling of DOMA (Defensive of Marriage Act) which was a federal law that allowed states to refuse to identify a same-sex couple as married, if they were

While the court was making their decision, they had many factors to think about. The big questions was; does the Fourteenth Amendment require states to license a marriage between two people of the same sex? And they ultimately found out that denying same-sex marriage does indeed violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The court also discussed 4 main principles. The first being the right to personal choice, as it relates to marriage, it’s a concept of individual freedom. The next principle was that marriage is a fundamental right, and supports a two person union unlike any other. The third principle they looked at was the right to marry, not being conditioned on the ability , capacity, or commitment to procreate. Lastly, they found that, there is actually no difference between same and opposite sex couples, so they shouldn’t receive anything less than