Ten Years After Landmark Supreme Court Ruling, Is Same-Sex Marriage at Risk?

(From June 26, 2025) 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 late Justice Antonin Scalia.

While Gallup polling in 2015 showed that just 37 percent of Republicans thought same-sex 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 take aim at the Supreme Court, urging the justices to overturn the Obergefell precedent.

"As an interracial gay couple with an adopted daughter, these developments are deeply unsettling—especially living in a swing state that leans conservative," Nikhil Patil, who resides in Georgia and married his husband in 2020, told Newsweek. "My husband and I have had difficult conversations about contingency plans." (READ MORE at Newsweek)