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We just wanted to be husbands. We wanted to exist, and the joy we found in saying husband again and again and again was incredible. I promised John I would love, honor and protect him. And if I didn't keep fighting in his memory, on his behalf, on our marriages behalf,
I wasn't living up to my promises to him. And if I didn't keep fighting, Ohio could send me a new death certificate telling me that John was unmarried at the time he died, and there was no way in hell I was going to let that happen.
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South, I thought being gay was the worst thing I could ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to learn that by seeking out our history, and what I've found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love. In this episode, we'll meet Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in Obergafell b. Hodges, the case that legalized gay marriage for all of America. We'll learn about how the story behind that victory was one of loss and one of love.
I'm Jordan Gonsolves and this is but we loved. I remember the day that gay marriage was legalized in America. It was June twenty sixth, twenty fifteen, and I was nineteen years old and still in the closet. But that day changed everything for me. I was ashamed of being gay up until that point, but seeing those images of couples in front of the Supreme Court, kissing defiantly and cheering, it caused my heart to beat so hard and fast
in my chest. I had barely admitted to myself yet that I was gay, but for the first time ever, I felt pride, and I came out just a year later. The case that legalized gay marriage was called Obergefell vi. Hodges, and even though it had impacted me so deeply, truthfully, I didn't know much about it, and I didn't know anything about the love story behind it either. My next guest, Jim Obergefell, was the plaintiff in that case. He sued the government so that he and his partner of twenty
years could be seen as lawfully married. Jim embodies everything this show is about. Faced with so much hardship, the love he had for his partner gave him the bravery to change America. We sort of have this thing on the show where I ask all the guests when did you know you were queer or gay? And it's really cute because I think it ends up kind of revealing a little bit about the time period and how you grew up. So why don't we start there, when did you know you were gay?
Well, the first hint I can think I was when I was probably eight or nine years old. I remember back at that time the Sears and jcpenny catalogs were a big thing, especially at Christmas time. But I remember when my family finished with those catalogs and through it in the trash. I would pull them out of the trash because I wanted to cut out the pages of men's underwear.
Oh wow, right now.
I couldn't put into words why I wanted those pages, but I wanted those pages. But I also picked up or knew just from society that that wasn't right, that wasn't acceptable. So I hid them in a coffee can in the basement of my childhood home.
Wow.
So I would say, age of eight or nine.
You grew up in Ohio and I'm wondering what did marriage mean to you? Growing up as this gay child that sort of didn't have many role models for it.
When I thought about my future, I always pictured marriage because I'm I'm the baby of six and a Catholic family, and for me, I always thought, well, my future means I will get married to a woman and have children, because that's what a good Catholic boy does, and that's what all of my siblings did. I actually was engaged to a woman because that's how deeply I bought into
that was my future. And I have to say I'm glad I didn't drag her into something that would have ended horribly for her, because in my mind, I was straight, I'm marrying a woman, I'll have kids, That's what I do.
If you went through with that, I think we'd all be living in a very different America right.
Now, potentially. But I'm glad it never came to that. I'm glad I could be myself.
I'm interested to know how you and John actually met each other.
So when I was an undergraduate school one of the other people in the program, he and I became really good friends, Kevin, and after we had both graduated, we went to a bar near the University of Cincinnati, and we walked in and Kevin said, oh, well, there's my friend John Arthur. And John was sitting at the bar drinking a Gin and tonic. So Kevin introduced us, and I was still in the closet, and John scared the daylights out of me because he seemed so comfortable in
his skin as an outgay man. I thought for sure he was going to call me out on it, but he did it. So that was the first time we met. Shortly after that, I went to graduate school and it was that summer in graduate school that I finally came out. My friend Kevin and I got together again, and we went back to that same bar, and there's John sitting
at the bar, drinking at gena tonic yet again. Now I'm newly out, and we're talking, and John said something along the lines of you'd never go out with someone like me. And I still don't know where I had the courage or the wit to say what I did, but I said, how do you know? You haven't asked? And the jerk didn't, so I thought, well, this is the second time I've met John. I'll never see him again.
A couple months later, Kevin had become one of John's housemates and they were throwing a New Year's Eve party, so Kevin invited me to the party. I went to John's house for the party, and I like to say I never left for John and me. It really was love at third site, not at first sight. I was in the kitchen behind John and his friends were there and I was meeting people, and somehow my hands ended up in his pockets.
Oh yeah.
So a little bit later during the party, I don't remember if it was before or after midnight, but John said come with me. We went upstairs and took a shower.
So that's how it all began, the typical gay fashion. I wonder, you know, you met John and you guys hit it off at this point? At what point did you know he was the one.
It's hard to put a specific time on that, but I knew even that New Year's Eve party, I knew there was something there. I told John that I said I want to date. I want us to be a couple, and he tried to talk me out of it. He's like Jim, I've dated a lot of guys and it's never ended well. So he really tried to push me off and talk me out of it, and I said, no, I want to try this. But seven weeks later I
was in Columbus, Ohio for a conference. John came up from Cincinnati and he gave me a diamond ring.
Wow.
So seven weeks we both knew there was something.
There was The diamond ring supposed to symbolize him asking you to marry him.
It wasn't necessarily that, but it symbolized we are a couple, were committed, and this is a relationship that has a future.
So very early on it was a bond.
It was absolutely it was one of those things we just knew.
I'm realizing that John sounds really like he was really funny. What was John's personality? Like?
Oh, John had the driest sense of humor, and he was so observant and so smart in his use of the English language. Is like just this incredible brevity of describing something in a matter of a couple words at most, and his wit not always appropriate, but it sure was fun.
So after you guys had been together for several years and you moved in together, what was your favorite memory in that era of your relationship.
You know, coming back to Cincinnati and buying a house and you know, putting that together and making that house our home.
It sounds like the most precious part of that was finding a life partner.
It really was.
It was knowing that he's going to be here, He's going to be part of my life for the rest of my life.
And you know, you guys are together at this point for several years. Was there a point during that time where you wanted to get married?
Oh?
Absolutely, John and I talked about marriage early on because it was something we wanted. We wanted to make that commitment, but we also both agreed that we weren't willing to do just a symbolic ceremony. We wanted it to actually mean something legal, So we just assumed it would never happen.
Shifting gears. A little bit after you've been together for nineteen years, he starts to get sick.
What happened to him?
So the first thing that I noticed was in January of twenty twelve, when he was walking around our condo. It just sounded different wearing shoes. It just felt like one foot was slapping the floor harder than the other, and I picked up on it, so I asked him if he had pulled a muscle, sprained an ankle, but he hadn't, so he thought, well, whatever this is, it'll go away. Well it didn't go away. So I finally convinced him he really need to go to the doctor.
So in April of twenty twelve, he finally went to our family doctor. That started lots of testing. So he saw one neurologist, he saw a second neurologist, and he saw a third neurologist. And I still remember the day he came home from seeing that third neurologist because he said, Jim, stay home, I just want to go. I was sitting at the kitchen island and he walked in from that third neurologist appointment, and I jumped up and he hugged me and started to cry, and he said, this neurologist concurs.
It's ALS.
And for the listeners who don't know what ALS is, what is it?
So ALS is a neurological disease. And the way I think of it, and the way I explain it to myself and others is think about walking. Your brain is telling your muscles everything in your body what to do
to walk. But with ALS, the connections between your brain and those muscles involved in walking, they start to break down and they don't repair, so over time those connections keep breaking, and for most people, the eventual cause of death is suffocation because you get to the point where those messages from your brain aren't even making it to your diaphragm, so you can't breathe. But he held on to the ability to speak almost to the end. I mean the last couple of months he can only speak
a sentence or two of time. But I really am grateful for that because I could still revel in his wit, his brains, his sense of humor. Other people, one of the first things they lose is the ability to speak.
And so he's in his forties. What was that like for you as his partner, coming to terms with this diagnosis so early in his life.
I mean, simply put, it wasn't easy. And to have that person you love more than anything, the person you think you're going to spend decades more with, to have him come home and say I have a terminal illness and I'm going to die sooner rather than later. That's a really painful thing to hear. I'm just going to lose the most important person in my world.
So after the diagnosis, how were you thinking about caring for him because you were pretty young.
I knew from the moment he came home and said, this neurologist concurs its ALS, I knew there was no way I was sending him to a care facility. So for me, that was a given. He's not going to a facility. I don't know how hard it's going to be. I don't care how hard it might be. I'm taking care of him.
Wow, and Jim, what was some of your duties as his full time caretaker?
It was everything. I mean. John would also admit, you know, even before his diagnosis, he would admit I took care of him. I did all the cooking. The deal was. The deal was that I would do the cooking, he would do the cleanup. That never happened, but I didn't care because for me, cooking and everything that went with it for someone I loved, That's what I liked doing. So caring for someone with ALS as they slowly lose
every ability. You know, it got to the point where I had to lift him out of bed to take him to the bathroom. I fed him as food, I cleaned him. I took care of him in every way that he needed. Because, of course, I.
Would when we come back, Jim and John decide to get married. It's twenty thirteen. John Arthur is progressively getting more sick because of als. He and Jim had always dreamed of getting married, but at this point, gay marriage in America was like a patchwork. It was legal in some states and illegal in others. And even if you did get married in a state where it was legal, the federal government still would not recognize your marriage. That's because of a law called the Defense of Marriage Act
or DOMA. So I know you guys said dreamed of getting married, but you couldn't.
What had changed, Well, part of it was completely out of our control. So this was June twenty six, twenty thirteen. I was working at the dining table and John called me into his room because there was news coming off from the Supreme Court. So I was standing next to his bed, holding his hand when we learned that the Supreme Court, with their decision United States versus Windsor, they
had struck down the federal defensive Mary Jack. And as we're standing there and as that news is sinking in, I realized and wait, here's our opportunity, at least for the federal government to see us, to recognize us as a married couple. So we hadn't talked about it, hadn't thought about it, but I spontaneously proposed. I said let's get married, and luckily he said yes. So it truly was nothing more than the first time in our almost
twenty one years together living in Ohio. Here is our opportunity to get married and to actually have it mean something legal.
So John is pretty sick at this point, but because of Doma being struck down, you decide to get married. What was the wedding like? Because at this point John was pretty immobile.
John was completely bedridden, had no physical abilities. So at this point John could say maybe two sentences at a time. He could still move his right hand a bit, but not much.
That was it. He had no.
Other physical abilities. In essence, his whole left side was useless. His right side other than moving his right hand a little bit, that was really all all of the ability that he had, and being able to speak, which again I feel really fortunate that I was able to enjoy his wit and his voice. So I started researching the states where we could get married. But then as I continued to research, discovered that Maryland was the only state that did not require both people to appear in person
to apply for the marriage license. So for me, my whole goal was I want to keep John safe and comfortable as much as possible. Maryland just made that more of a possibility than other states. But then the big problem was how do we get there?
You know, sure I.
Could have put John in's wheelchair, put him in our wheelchair minivan and driven to Maryland, but that would have been so incredibly painful and hard on him. Same thing with an ambulance, and I couldn't take him to the airport and fly and Delta or American. He had no abilities. So really left us one option, and that was a chartered medical jet.
Wow.
So you're climbing through all of these extraordinary obstacles, but you make it work and you're going to get married.
How was the wedding?
So on a Thursday in July two thousand and three teen, John and I took an ambulance to the airport lock An Airport in Cincinnati, the municipal airport, and we boarded this tiny jet and we flew to Baltimore Washington International Airport and we landed and we simply parked on the tarmac and we were on the ground for maybe at
most thirty minutes. But in that time, the nurse and the pilots left the airplane so we could be on our own and I just got to take John's hand and we got we got to say, IV wed.
Does it still make you emotional?
Yeah?
It does?
You know. I I wrote vows. John didn't have the ability to write vows, but he's he said a sentence or two, and we just simply got to say, you're the one.
That's so beautiful.
It was. It really was the happiest moment of our life together. And it's funny. I think a lot of people would say, well, you've been together almost twenty one years, what difference did it make? It doesn't change anything, and I begged to differ. It changed everything. We felt different, we felt more complete, and it was just something we wanted for so long.
Yeah, Jim, what was marriage? What did it mean to you and John?
Together?
For us, it really meant dignity and respect and being seen by our country, being seen by the government. So for us, it wasn't It wasn't financial, it wasn't benefits, it wasn't anything other than you have been my partner for almost twenty one years. I want to use the word husband, and I want that word to mean what it means to every other person who uses that word.
But John's pending death just made it all that more important to us to be able to say, you're the person I choose, You're the person I love, and I will fight for you, protect you, and love you no matter what.
Even though the federal government was forced to recognize Jim and John's marriage at this point, individual states could still discriminate against gay couples. They could say, Hey, we know you got married in a state where gay marriage is legal, but it's not legal here, so your marriage is not valid here. This is what happened to Jim and John. They got married in Maryland but lived in Ohio, where gay marriage was illegal. They knew this, but they didn't quite understand the stakes yet.
So we got married. On Thursday. Friends of ours went to a party and they ran into a civil rights attorney, al Gerhardstein. He's been fighting for civil rights for over fifty years now, so they share part of our story. And he reached out to say, would you guys be open to meeting? So he said sure, so he came on Tuesday, five days after we got married, and in that conversation he pulled out the blank Ohio death certificate. He said, now, guys, I bet you haven't thought about
this because you just got married. Why would you be thinking about John's death certificate? But do you understand that when John dies, his last record as a person will be wrong? Because here on the death certificate, where it says marital status at time of death, Ohio will say John was unmarried in this field. In this field here for surviving spouse name, Jim, your name isn't going to be there.
Now.
John and I knew Ohio wouldn't recognize our marriage because Ohio had its own state level defense at marya Jack, but that was an abstract understanding. But to have Al tell us that John's last record as a person as a citizen of the state of Ohio in the United States, to say that last record would be wrong, it broke our hearts. But I think perhaps more importantly, it made us angry. Al said, do you want to do something
about it? Al tells me we talked for less than a minute and said, yes, we want to do something about this. So that's something meant filing a lawsuit, and we filed that lawsuit three days later, on Friday, eight days after we got married.
So in other words, Jim, basically you all had filed this lawsuit because in your mind, in your heart, you were thinking this isn't right. We did what was legal, and it should be reflected on my husband's last document as a person that he's my husband exactly right.
We wanted John to die a married man, and we wanted that to mean something in the state of Ohio where we both lived, and you know, in our mind, when Al explained what the basis of his argument would be, it made perfect sense. You know, in Ohio, first cousins cannot get a marriage license and get married. In Ohio,
an underaged couple cannot get a marriage license and get married. However, in other states where first cousins can get a marriage license and get married, or an underaged couple can get a marriage license and get married, even though that's a marriage that cannot be entered into in Ohio, as soon as that couple crosses the border into Ohio, Ohio immediately recognizes that marriage and gives them all of the benefits, protections,
respect everything comes with marriage. They give it to that couple, even though it's a marriage that could not be entered into an Ohio. And our argument was really pretty simple, Ohio, what you're doing is wrong. You're creating separate classes of citizens by recognizing some out of state marriages and not others.
Now, Jim, the case is making its way through the courts and in private, John's health is declining and you're still his caregiver. What was that like being a part of this very public case while privately your life partner is dying.
You know, when we first talked about doing this, filing the case, John gave me his okay because he knew if we did this it would take me away from him at times, so he knew I couldn't either with him twenty four to seven like I had been. But he was okay with that. I thought we should do it, and he also gave me his permission for me not to be with him all the time to do what
I needed to do. Now, I also have to say, you know, we filed that lawsuit on Friday, I was in court on Monday, and we won that same day because that judge issued a temporary restraining order which said, Ohio, when John dies, you have to recognize their marriage on his death certificate. When John died three months later to the day, October twenty second, twenty thirteen, after that is when then the state of Ohio could appeal, and they did so.
He died a married man.
He died a married man. He died knowing his death certificate would say he was buried to me. In those three months before he died, we used the word husband all the time, easily a couple hundred times every day. Are you thirsty, husband? What do you want to watch? Husband? We used it so frequently, Jordan, because finally now we can say it and it actually means something, and it meant something, not just legally. It meant something to us.
You weren't my husband and I can say that word and it means the same thing that it means to anyone else in this country who says they are a husband. And honestly, that was what we wanted. We just wanted to be husbands. We wanted to exist, and the joy we found in saying husband again and again and again was incredible.
When we come back, Ohio reverses its decision on Jim's marriage and he decides to fight back. On October twenty second, twenty thirteen, John Arthur passed away peacefully from als related complications. Even though Jim was devastated, he was comforted knowing that John's death certificate read that he was his husband. But a few months after John died, the state of Ohio filed an appeal. They didn't want Jim's name on that death certificate, and in the midst of his grief, Jim
decided to fight back and he lost. Ohio had won their appeal. Jim's last option was to go to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court. Nineteen seventy one was the last time the Supreme Court had addressed nationwide legalization of gay marriage. In a case called Baker v. Nelson, they effectively upheld a lower court ruling that denied the right to same sex marriage. But over forty years later, they took Jim's case and it was getting a ton
of publicity. Even though Jim was shattered that he had lost the love of his life, he was determined to win. After John died. Is sort of when you get pushback from the government and they're trying to change things, why was it important for you to keep the case going and to keep fighting after John had died a married man.
Well, honestly, because I promised John I would love, honor and protect him. And if I didn't keep fighting in his memory, on his behalf, on our marriage's behalf, that I wasn't living up to my promises to him. And if I didn't keep fighting, it meant that Ohio could get to the point where, you know, if things went horribly wrong, Ohio could send me a new death certificate telling me that John was unmarried at the time he died. There was no way in hell I was going to
let that happen. I had to keep fighting. I promised John, and I deserved the right to call myself his widow work for the rest of my life.
What was the promise you made to him?
You're my person. I will do everything to fight for you, to care for you, to love you. Those are the promises that in my mind, when you marry someone or when you commit to someone, those are the promises you make.
So, Jim, now the case is becoming bigger, and it's going to the Supreme Court, and it's getting all of this attention from the media and from everyone around the country. What was it like for you to fight for this landmark case and also be grieving your partner at the same time.
So many times people would say, especially when I would speak and tell our story, people would say, Jim, it just must be really difficult to talk about John, to talk about what he went through in his death. And my response was always no, I get to talk about my husband all the time. Talking about him keeps him alive. I'm talking about him because I'm fighting for him. I'm
fighting for us, I'm fighting for people like us. So for me continuing the fight and you know, going to the six cercret Court of Appeals, losing their appealing to the Supreme Court, going to the Supreme Court, all of that was part of my career process because even though John was gone, he was ever present. I was talking about him, thinking about him, fighting for him. So I feel honestly fortunate that I had that opportunity.
So what you're saying is that even though he wasn't here and you were going through the case alone, getting the chance to talk about your love for him and who he was so publicly was part of your grieving process.
I think I would have been a lot worse off if I didn't have that opportunity to keep him alive and to talk about him and everything that I was able to do.
I mean, I.
Certainly cried in private, but I think back to those times and I was just me.
It's twenty fifteen, and it's been two years since Jim filed the case and two years since his partner John passed away. He had been on a media tour and he was continuing to fight the case in court while grieving the loss of his husband. At the same time, the case had officially been argued, and now he anxiously waited for the verdict. His husband's legacy and their marriage were on the line. On the morning of June twenty six, twenty fifteen, he sat in the Supreme Court, not sure
what their decision would be. Take me to that moment that you want. It's June twenty fifteen and you're in the Supreme Court and you win. What was going through your mind when you found out?
When it sank in that yeah, we won. I mean I burst into tears. I could hear people around the courtroom sobbing. Elle who is in the courtroom. Our attorney told me later he's never seen so many attorneys crying in a courtroom, and of course my first thought was, John, I wish you were here. I wish you could experience this, and I wish you could know that our marriage could never be erased.
Jim, you said that John was this master of words. What do you think he would have said when you guys want.
I think it would be a variation of what he said when I left home to go to the hearing, the very first tearing in our case, and as I'm getting ready to walk out of his room and head to court, he said, go kick some ass. So I think on June twenty six, twenty fifteen, it would have been a variation of that, Jim, you kicked ass.
He would have been proud of you.
Which he would have, and then he would have come up with something really insightful and beautiful and wonderful. But I think his first reaction would have been, yeah, you did, You kicked ass.
Do you find comfort in knowing that his legacy is everywhere now? I do.
I love that something really good happened in this country because John loved me and I loved him. And even if people don't necessarily know all of the details or even remember John's name, a good percentage of people in this country know that Olbergafelvi Hoadjes came about because of love and loss. But you know, I don't care if people even really know my first name. I don't care
if they think about me and John. I just want them to think that means marriage, and that means the queer community is closer to being equal in our country.
You know, Actually, Jim, it's funny because I was thinking about this the other day and I was nineteen when obergefel Viajes happened, and I ended up coming out the very next summer. I was still in the closet, but it had everything to do with me coming out, Like knowing that people like me could get married made it feel a little bit safer to be open and honest and have the confidence to tell people who I am. And so it's such an honor to be able to thank you for that, and John too.
Well, thank you for sharing that. Jordan. You know, I spoke at the University of Tennessee two years ago and a young student came up to me afterwards and said, Jim, I just want you to know if it weren't for Obergafelvi Hodges. If it weren'd for marriage equality, I would have committed suicide. That's that's John's legacy, saving her life and the life of countless others who in that decision.
A stupid legal case which most of us are eyes roll when we think about lawsuits, But a lawsuit gave her hope, and I know she isn't the only one. So for me, if that's the legacy, the only legacy I have, I'm pretty darn good with that.
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in to tell your story, email us at Buttweloved at gmail dot com or send us a message on Instagram or TikTok at butt we Loved. We are a production of The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshino Zaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey pat Our executive producers
are me Maya Howard and Kittrina Norble. Fact checking by Marisa Brown, original music by Steve Bone Special thanks to Jay Bronson and Roquel Willis. If you loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
I'll see you next week.