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Obergefell Vs. Hodges: Marriage Equality And Discrimination

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Although many may simply think of the 2015 Supreme Court case of Obergefell v. Hodges when they think of what created marriage equality, the history is far more complex. The divisive struggle for the fundamental right to marry is full of many changes and continuities over time. Moreover, many of the strategies implemented largely parallel those of the African American civil rights movement. Both marked hard fought struggles for basic rights afforded others but excluded from minority groups, simply because of their sexual orientation or the color of their skin. The conditions of the 1960s primed the gay rights movement for an awakening. At this time, the “increased radicalism of the late-Sixties racial and antiwar movements was just manifesting …show more content…

They felt that such strategies were essentially making sacrifices to assimilate with the rest of society. As it was begun with Stonewall, the new guard continued to advocate embracing their difference and uniqueness. However, such actions would increase the divisions within the gay community as they ran directly counter to the old guards priority of public acceptance of the gay community as normal. Moreover, it is important to note that the idea of marriage equality was still not a pressing concern at this time. A majority of those in both the new and old guard had yet to even consider such a radical demand. The focus still largely remained on obtaining other basic rights and being seen as equals, a gradual strategy largely paralleling those used during the civil rights …show more content…

Under these bans, consensual sex between persons of the same sex was considered illegal. The ACLU decided to intervene by pursuing the case of Bowers v. Hardwick. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court when, in 1986, they upheld laws criminalizing sodomy. Such a ruling stated that “gays and lesbians were immoral actors, unworthy of the protections of the United States Constitution. For them alone, there was no privacy principle in the liberal state. In more than half the American states, they were committing a crime every time they had sex. Any other conclusion, Justice Byron White wrote for the court, would be ‘factitious.’” This heinous ruling effectively revitalized the radical gay rights

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