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Behind the Aegis

(53,831 posts)
Thu Jun 27, 2019, 12:08 AM Jun 2019

Jim Obergefell is concerned for the the future of marriage equality

The morning I called Jim Obergefell, the first thing we talked about wasn’t the historic role he played in legalizing marriage equality across the United States but his 513 area code. We were both born and raised in Ohio.

Coincidentally, the seminal coming-of-age queer film Edge of Seventeen was set in Sandusky the same year Obergefell graduated high school in the Cleveland suburb most famously known as home to the effervescent whirligigs of Cedar Point. When he sued the state of Ohio in 2013 for his right to be listed on the death certificate of his late husband, John Arthur, he was a resident of Cincinnati, my hometown.

Just days before we spoke, Obergefell announced plans to move back to his home state after relocating to Washington, D.C. some years ago to pursue Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court case that bore his surname. (The anniversary of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority ruling is June 26, 2105). We discussed Occasional Magic, a collection of essays originally featured in the live storytelling series The Moth, in which he discusses the couple’s long fight for equality.


It’s an emotional tour-de-force, but in a lighter moment, he expresses condolences to all the law students who will be forced to pronounce his surname for generations: It’s Ober-ga-fell.

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