On Thursday, 10 years will have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court established same-sex marriage as a right guaranteed under the Constitution.
But many of the tens of thousands of American L.G.B.T.Q. couples who have wed in the decade since might never have exchanged vows if it hadn’t been for seven couples who sued the State of Massachusetts in 2001 after they were denied marriage licenses.
The state’s high court ruled in their favor in November 2003, and six months later, hundreds of gay couples descended on churches and synagogues and town halls across Massachusetts to make their unions official. As they did so, they were helping to set in motion a period of profound change.
By the time the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage, 37 states and the District of Columbia already allowed it and public opinion was moving swiftly toward acceptance.
Today, though, the picture is more complicated. Last month, a Gallup survey found that while 68 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, approval among Republicans had slipped to 41 percent after peaking at 55 percent in 2021 and 2022. And the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that a right to abortion could not be found in the Constitution raised fears among many supporters of same-sex marriage that the court could overturn the Obergefell decision on similar grounds.
Those who said “I do” in Massachusetts on May 17, 2004, were among the first same-sex couples to be legally married in the United States. (The marriages of thousands of couples who were issued marriage licenses in San Francisco earlier that year were later voided by the California Supreme Court.)
We spoke to five Massachusetts couples, four of whom were plaintiffs in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the case that led to the decision by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. They shared some of the ways in which marriage has shaped their lives.
Hillary Goodridge and Julie N.W. Goodridge
Boston
One month after Hillary Goodridge said “I do” to Julie Goodridge, her longtime partner, she found herself in the hospital needing stitches after an accident involving a rake and a split lip.
As they were checking in, a nurse asked Hillary who Julie was. Julie said, “Her wife.” It was the first time either had publicly used the word to describe her partner.
“We walked right into the emergency room as a married couple,” Julie said.
It was quite a change from nearly a decade earlier, when Julie gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Annie. Hillary was in the room for Julie’s planned cesarean section, but during the procedure the doctors realized the baby had ingested something and sent her to the neonatal intensive care unit. Hillary was initially barred from the NICU and from Julie’s recovery room.
“At that moment, you’re not really thinking about social change,” Julie, 67, said. But two decades later, she says, “the cultural moment that we are in now is so filled with anxiety and vitriol.”
“We’re certainly not set up well at the Supreme Court for our families to be protected,” she said. “If we’re going to continue with the current perspective that prior decisions that prior courts have made have limited value, equal marriage is going to have a problem.”
Hillary, 69, remains more sanguine. “There is an entire generation of new adults, new voters, who grew up in a world where we had marriage equality,” she said. “I do not believe we will be turn that back.”
When the couple married at the Unitarian Universalist Association, overlooking Boston Common and the State House, Annie was the ring bearer.
Though the Goodridges separated two years later, Hillary said of their marriage, “It was totally worth it, I have never regretted it.”
Last September, Hillary and Julie were proud mothers of the bride when Annie got married in Massachusetts.
Eve C. Alpern and Brenda Morris
Belmont, Mass.
In 2007, Brenda Morris gave birth to identical twin boys, Jaden and Isaac. Through the chaotic early days of caring for newborn twins, Brenda and her wife, Eve Alpern, had to navigate a bureaucratic thicket. To guarantee that they both had full parental rights under state law, they chose to legally adopt the children — a step that they said required Brenda to first sever her rights as the biological parent.
“From hospital policies to custody laws, school registration and passport applications,” Eve said, “raising our kids has been impacted by our marriage.”
Eve, however, had never wanted to get married. “I associated the institution of marriage with treating women like property,” she said. “But I envisioned a life in love.”
Despite that feeling, she found herself waiting in line next to Brenda at City Hall in Cambridge, Mass., at 2 p.m. on May 16, 2004. At midnight, along with nearly 250 other couples, they were among the first same-sex couples in the city to receive marriage licenses.
Later, they had 75 close friends and family come for an interfaith service, led by a lesbian rabbi, at a historic estate in Arlington, Mass. “We felt blessed and very, very lucky,” Brenda, 54, said.
“The legal wins were huge, but they don’t mean we’re fully equal,” Eve, 52, said. “In this political climate, rights we fought so hard for are being rolled back overnight. The hate is louder, the threats are real. Marriage equality was never the endgame — it was a beginning. We’re still fighting to feel safe, seen and secure in our own country.”
Mike Horgan and Ed Balmelli
Boston
Over the course of 20 years of marriage, Ed Balmelli and Mike Horgan both lost their parents. Beyond sharing their grief, they said, their marriage also saved them from additional anguish as they made funeral arrangements and divided their parents’ assets with their siblings.
They were also listed in the obituaries in the same manner as their married siblings.
In 2000, the couple traveled to Vermont to have a civil union ceremony. “That was the closest thing we could do to get married,” Ed said. “But then you tell people, ‘We’re a civil union,’ and they’re like, ‘What does that mean?’”
Questions like that convinced the couple to join the lawsuit. “My feeling on it was that if this era got by us and we weren’t involved, I think I would regret that,” Mike said. “I think it’s the most important thing that we’ve ever done in our lives.”
They no longer have to explain their relationship, and when their parents died, they were treated like their many siblings in their large Irish families.
As Ed, 65, and Mike, 66, celebrated their 20th anniversary last year, they said their joy had been tempered by their concerns about the Supreme Court. After the court legalized gay marriage across the country, Mike said, “We had the feeling that we were done fighting now, we can rest easy. But, he said, “if they can take away a woman’s right to an abortion, they can take anything away.”
David Wilson and Robert Compton
Provincetown, Mass.
Two decades after Rob Compton married David Wilson, he said he has to explain to his grandchildren why their wedding was such a big deal in 2004. “Today, we have no qualms about it,” he said. But young people, he said, “just don’t get” why so many were against it at the time.
Both men had been married to women and had children, and knew that marriage provided tangible benefits. “If you say ‘We’re married,’ immediately, everybody knows what that means, and they treat you accordingly,” David, 81, said.
Rob had been the head of a large dental group practice in Michigan when he came out in 1994. When his partners in the practice later asked him to resign, without giving cause, he said, he refused. He was then fired. (He sued for wrongful termination and won the case and the appeal.) By the spring of 1996, he had moved to Massachusetts, one of the few states at the time that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing and other services.
He met David soon afterward; they moved in together and had a commitment ceremony in 2000.
During an overnight emergency room visit for a kidney stone, David was denied access to Rob’s room. It was a shocking way for them to learn the limits of the state anti-discrimination laws. “It made me aware of the fact that I have individual rights in Massachusetts and some workplace protections,” Rob, 76, said, even as he and David were denied the federal rights and protections that straight married couples enjoyed.
That episode, Rob said, convinced the couple that they should become part of the Goodridge lawsuit.
Today, they said, they are hopeful about the changes that have taken place in the last 50 years.
“When David and I were young in the ’50s and ’60s, you would never admit you were queer,” Rob said. Now, “a lot of young people today feel empowered to just be themselves. That’s a huge swing.”
Gina and Heidi Nortonsmith
Northampton, Mass.
For years after Heidi Nortonsmith and Gina Nortonsmith were legally married, they carried their marriage certificate everywhere they went. It afforded them “a measure of security for when we traveled out of state, or needed to make our way to the hospital for a family emergency,” Heidi said.
The couple, who have been together since 1990, held a commitment ceremony in 1993. Heidi gave birth to their children, Avery, in 1996, and Quinn, in 2000. Gina was not legally recognized as a parent until she completed the process of adopting them, about a year after each was born.
Even so, they considered themselves lucky.
“We live in Northampton; it was a very supportive community,” Gina said. “We were already out. We each had very supportive families. We were not in danger of losing a job because of it.”
Gina and Heidi, both 60, gave their two sons the last name Nortonsmith — a combination of their family names. After they were married, they legally changed their last names, too. “That was the day that we all became Nortonsmiths,” Gina said.
It took a decade for the couple to be comfortable traveling without their marriage certificate.
“Without even noticing a precise moment,” Heidi said, “we’d each become comfortable in the sense that our marriage would be understood and respected, no matter where we traveled throughout the country.”
Adeel Hassan, a New York-based reporter for The Times, covers breaking news and other topics.
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