Marriage Equality: Is Intolerance Returning to the States?
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In 2015, when Obergefell v. Hodges was announced, people stood in the streets crying, waving rainbow flags outside courthouses, saying, “We won.” The assumption seemed obvious: when a right becomes law at the national level, it can’t be taken away. But that is not how American politics works, especially not in a country where a Supreme Court decision lasts about as long as a presidential term, and in an era where Trumpism has somehow made 2015 feel like “the good old days.”
The recent headlines on the American news have included the potential threat to marriage equality and LGBTQ+ peoples’ rights. When lawmakers feel protected under a president who says he would “strongly consider” repealing LGBTQ protections, they no longer see a reason to hide them.
It wasn’t the end of the fight.
It just went quiet.
How We Got Here
How We Got Here
Marriage equality didn’t appear out of nowhere in the United States; it was the result of decades of legal and activist struggle. In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court began dismantling the ban slowly: first in 2013 with United States v. Windsor, and then fully in 2015 with Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Many, especially younger generations who never saw the earlier defeats, believed that ruling was the final victory.
But Obergefell didn’t erase the old bans. It merely overruled them. Even after the ruling, some states still had constitutional or statutory bans on same-sex marriage written into their laws, ready to snap back into effect the moment the Court changes its mind.
And now, in 2025, the rollback has already begun. This year alone, nine states introduced bills or resolutions to restrict, repeal, or challenge same-sex marriage.
Not secretly. Not symbolically.
Legally.
Why This Is Happening Now
Why This Is Happening Now
The ACLU reports that 2025 has already broken the record for the most anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in U.S. state legislatures. Even if many fail, they reshape the political atmosphere - they force the public to think of marriage equality as something “up for debate” again.
The irony? 67% of Americans still support same-sex marriage as of 2025 , even though there has been a decline since the 2023s 71%
But the Constitution doesn’t define rights by public opinion.
It defines them through law.
And right now, the law is being rewritten against the people it’s supposed to protect.
What’s at Stake
What’s at Stake
If marriage becomes legally “optional” again, then everything attached to marriage like hospital visitation, medical and insurance benefits, parental and adoption rights, inheritance and property law, or even legal family status should become optional too.
Imagine that a gay couple married in New York decides to cross into a different state, and they legally stop existing as a family - a clear violation of their basic rights.
It sounds dystopian until you remember it was normal before 2015.
A legal analysis found that 60% of LGBTQ adults in the U.S. live in states where their marriages would no longer be recognized if Obergefell were overturned. People are already preparing: writing emergency wills, signing extra legal paperwork, even considering relocation, not for opportunity, but for protection.
That isn’t “equality.”
It’s survival mode.
What Comes Next
What Comes Next
Saying “They can’t do that - it’s already law” is the same mistake people made about Roe v. Wade. Being legal does not mean being safe. Precedence is not protection. Court rulings are not shields. And rights given through the Supreme Court can be taken back the same way.
The ways in which marriage equality is currently protected include state-level protections, stating that rights must exist in state law so they don’t collapse if federal protections fall. Alongside with that, the issue of public pressure and voting still stands, meaning that lawmakers only feel brave when voters stay quiet. People choose to act too late - mostly after new restrictions have been imposed. They tend to wait until after rights are removed, and then it turns out to be too late to change anything.
The threat isn’t the attack itself.
The threat is the silence that lets it succeed.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The lesson isn’t just that rights are fragile. It’s that the people in power are counting on us to treat them as guaranteed. Marriage equality wasn’t handed down as a favor - it was fought for, sued for, marched for. And anything won through resistance can be defended through resistance. Obergefell changed the law. Now it’s up to us to make sure that law can’t be rewritten every time a new administration decides it should be.
The question isn’t whether marriage equality will be challenged again.
The question is whether we’re prepared to answer loudly enough that it can’t be undone in silence.
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