Gay marriage supreme court 2025
Marriage Equality Around the World
The Human Rights Campaign tracks developments in the legal recognition of same-sex marriage around the world. Working through a worldwide network of HRC global alumni and partners, we lift up the voices of community, national and regional advocates and share tools, resources, and lessons learned to enable movements for marriage equality.
Current State of Marriage Equality
There are currently 38 countries where same-sex marriage is legal: Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Uruguay.
These countries have legalized marriage equality through both legislation and court decisions.
Countries that Legalized Marriage Equality in 2025
Liechtenstein: On May 16, 2024, Liechtenstein's government passed a bill in favor of marriage equality. The law went into effe
A decade after same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide via a landmark Supreme Court ruling, many LGBTQ+ individuals fear the right may no longer be secure, with some signs that long-growing Republican acceptance of it could be waning.
Obergefell v. Hodges was decided on June 26, 2015, in a 5 to 4 ruling. Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who still sit on the nation's top court, wrote dissenting opinions along with their former colleague, the belated Justice Antonin Scalia.
While Gallup polling in 2015 showed that just 37 percent of Republicans thought queer marriages should be valid, that number rose to a record high of 55 percent in 2022 and 2023, but has since dropped to 41 percent as of May—a double-digit decline. Over the past few months, conservative lawmakers in at least nine states have introduced legislation aimed at undermining same-sex marriage. Some of these bills specifically get aim at the Supreme Court, urging the justices to overturn the Obergefell precedent.
"As an interracial queer couple with an adopted daughter, these developments are deeply unsettling—especially living in a swing state that leans conservative," Nikh
Quick Hits
- June 26, 2025, marked the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s choice recognizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
- The Obergefell v. Hodges judgment had important legal implications for employers’ benefit plans.
- Existing federal law bans discrimination in hiring and firing on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, while twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., also have laws banning workplace discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Ten years ago, the Supreme Court decided in Obergefell v. Hodges to give all gay couples in the Joined States the right to marry. The case arose from challenges to Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee laws that banned queer marriages and refused to recognize legally valid gay marriages performed in other states.
The Court answered two questions. First, does the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment require states to license a marriage between two people of the equal sex? Second, does the Constitution require a declare to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was licensed lawfully in a unlike state?
On June 26, 2015, t
Some Republican lawmakers increase calls against gay marriage SCOTUS ruling
Conservative legislators are increasingly speaking out against the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling on same-sex marriage equality.
Idaho legislators began the trend in January when the state House and Senate passed a resolution calling on the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision -- which the court cannot do unless presented with a case on the issue. Some Republican lawmakers in at least four other states like Michigan, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota have followed suit with calls to the Supreme Court.
In North Dakota, the resolution passed the articulate House with a vote of 52-40 and is headed to the Senate. In South Dakota, the state’s House Judiciary Committee sent the proposal on the 41st Legislative Evening –deferring the bill to the final day of a legislative session, when it will no longer be considered, and effectively killing the bill.
In Montana and Michigan, the bills have yet to confront legislative scrutiny.
Resolutions have no legal authority and are not binding law, but instead allow legislative bodies to express their collective opinions.
The resolutions in four other states ech
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