Jim Obergefell - Love Wins

 

I fell in love with my husband John, the third time we met. I knew right from that moment that he was the person I wanted to spend my life with. I told him, I want to be a couple, I want to date. He tried to talk me out of it. He said, “Jim, I'm not good at relationships. I've dated a lot of men, and he had, and it didn't go well. But I wouldn't be talked out of it.” And so, we became a couple and we built a life together. Over the years, we talked many times about marriage, but we decided instead of having a symbolic ceremony, we would only marry if it actually carried legal weight. 

 

One day, John was walking around our condo, and I noticed that his walk sounded different. His left foot seemed to be slapping the floor harder than his right foot. When you've been together with someone for 18 years, you pick up on those small things. So, I asked him, “Did you sprain your ankle? Did you pull a muscle?” And he said “No.” And that slapping sound didn't go away. So, I convinced him to see our doctor. And that started a series of doctor visits and tests that lasted several months. 

 

One day, I was sitting at the kitchen island when he came home from a neurologist appointment. When he walked in the door, I jumped up, hugged and kissed him, and asked how it went. The tears started to fall, and his voice faltered as he said, “Our worst fears were confirmed.” ALS. Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is a death sentence. There's no cure and no effective treatment. And most patients die within two to five years of diagnosis. 

 

Now, John had always been the dreamer, the flighty one. He always saw possibilities and not necessarily reality. That was my job as the practical one. I kept us grounded. Friends like to describe me as the anchor to John's kite. With his diagnosis, we changed roles. He became the practical one. He was the one who talked about what we needed to change, what we needed to do, what we needed to plan for. Specifically, worrying about me, after he was gone. When I needed it most, John became my anchor. 

 

ALS progressed quickly. Barely two years after I asked about that slapping sound, the love of my life was bedridden, incapable of doing anything for himself. And in at home hospice care, I was his caregiver full time. Every routine we had built over 20 years together was supplanted with a new routine of caring for John, making sure he was safe and comfortable. After all, that's what you do when you love someone. You take care of them, the bad and the good. 

 

A few months later, I was standing next to his bed, holding his hand as we watched the news. We were expecting a decision from the Supreme Court on the Windsor case. The news came out and the Supreme Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act. And in a spontaneous, joyful moment, I leaned over, hugged and kissed John and said, “Let's get married.” And luckily, he said “Yes.” 

 

And for us, this was so important, because we wanted to only marry when our government would acknowledge us, would say we exist, would acknowledge our relationship. And that's what the Windsor decision did. It didn't bring marriage to any new states, but what it said was that the federal government had to recognize lawful same sex marriages for tax returns, federal benefits, Social Security, things like that. So, now, I had to figure out, how do I get this bedridden, dying man to another state, just so we can do something that millions of people take for granted. 

 

So, I started to do my research. We settled on Maryland as the place to get married, mainly because Maryland was the only place that did not require both people to appear in person to apply for a marriage license. My whole goal was to make this as painless and pain free on John as it could be. So, that helped. 

 

Okay, so, now we know where we're going. How do we get there? I wasn't willing to put him in an ambulance for that long of a trip. It just would have been too physically painful on him. He couldn't fly commercially. That left one option for us, a chartered medical jet. And let me tell you, if you've never priced one of those, they're not cheap. I went to Facebook and I thought, well, maybe one of our friends will know somebody, a pilot, someone who works for a chartered medical jet company, something just to make this a little easier. 

 

And the most amazing thing happened. Our family and friends immediately started replying, “Sorry, Jim, we don't know anyone. We can't help in that way, but you and John deserve to get married and we want to help make it happen.” Our family and friends banded together, and through their generosity, they covered the entire $13,000 cost of that jet. 

 

So, on a beautiful July morning in 2013, I dressed John in a pair of khakis and a plaid shirt with Velcro closures in place of buttons. I put on a crazy plaid pink jacket, and we rode in the back of an ambulance to the airport and we boarded this tiny jet, along with John's aunt Paulette, who would marry us and we flew to Baltimore. We landed at BWI Airport and parked on the tarmac. I raised the head of John's gurney, so that he was sitting up and I took his hand. And in that cramped medical jet, Aunt Paulette married us. We got to say those magical words that we never expected to say, “I do.” It was the happiest moment of our lives. 

 

We were on the ground for maybe 30 minutes before we were back in the air, flying home to Cincinnati as husband and husband. We said that word an awful lot in the days that followed, I don't think two sentences left our mouths without the word husband. “Good morning, husband. Would you like something to drink, husband? I love you, husband.” And that was all we wanted, to live out John's remaining days as husband and husband. 

 

A few days after we married, friends were at a party and they ran into a friend of theirs, a local civil rights attorney named Al. And our story came up in conversation. Our friends got in touch and asked if we might be willing to meet with Al. John and I discussed it and said, “Well, why not?” 

 

AI came to visit and in walked this brilliant, kind, gentle man. He sat down with us and talked with us, and he pulled out a piece of paper and his piece of paper was a blank Ohio death certificate. And he said, “Now, guys, I'm sure you haven't thought about this, because who thinks about a death certificate when you've just gotten married? But do you understand that when John dies, his last official record as a person will be wrong? Ohio will say he's unmarried and Jim, your name won't be there as his surviving spouse.” 

 

We were speechless. Al was right. We hadn't thought about it. And dammit, we just jumped through all these hoops to get married, and the state of Ohio is going to pretend that we don't exist, they're going to erase our marriage from John's last official record? It hurt, it was painful and it was personal. 

 

So, John and I, we were never political. We weren't activists other than signing checks. But we decided to fight for our marriage and for people like us across Ohio, and we filed suit. We sued the state of Ohio to say, “You have to fill out John's death certificate accurately when he dies and recognize our marriage.” 11 days after we married, I left home to John's words, “Go kick some ass, Jim.” I went to federal court and I took the stand and I had the chance to read a statement to federal Judge Timothy Black. I got to explain to him and describe to him what Judge John meant to me, what our marriage meant to us, and how harmful and hurtful it was to know that the state of Ohio wanted nothing more than to erase the most important relationship of our lives from his last record as a person. 

 

The state of Ohio kept saying, “But the people of Ohio voted for this, and that carries more weight than your constitutional rights.” I will always remember how Al, our attorney, replied to that. He said, “The surest way to abridge the rights of a minority is to allow the majority to vote on it.” At 5 o'clock that day, Judge Black released his ruling, starting with the sentence, “This is not a complicated case.” He ruled in our favor and said, “Ohio, when John dies, you must recognize their marriage on his death certificate.” [audience cheers and applause] 

 

John and I had three months more together as husband and husband. And In October of 2013, I read aloud to him from one of his favorite books, Weaveworld by Clive Barker. I still remember the last sentence. I read, “Lions. He'd come with lions.” I'm grateful. The last voice John heard was mine, and he died. 

 

A few months later, the state of Ohio couldn't let this lie, so they appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. And our case, along with several others, was heard by that appeals court. And about a year after John died, I got a phone call to tell me, “Jim, the court of appeals just ruled against you. They have given Ohio the ability to erase your marriage from John's death certificate.” I worried every single day. I went to the mailbox. I thought, is this the day I'm going to pull out an updated death certificate with the most important relationship of my life erased from John's death certificate? 

 

But I clung to the silver lining. I wasn't going to give up. I was going to fight and I was going to take this all the way to the Supreme Court if I had to. And that's what happened. In April of last year, I walked into that courtroom, the Supreme Court of the United States of America, and I took in this grand room, the marble walls, the marble columns, the red, white and blue ceiling, and these dark red drapes with gold fringe that honestly put me in mind of a French whorehouse. [audience laughter] 

 

And I wondered, will the court live up to those four words inscribed in the pediment of their very own building equal justice under law. I thought about John. I thought about our marriage. I thought about my co-plaintiffs, another widow, parents, couples, children. And I wondered, are we going to walk out of here knowing that our marriage licenses, our death certificates, birth certificates matter and are they accurate? Do they hold value? 

 

A short two month wait later for the court to deliberate and write an opinion, I was back in that courtroom waiting to hear their decision. The Chief Justice announced that Justice Kennedy would read the first decision They read our case number, and I startled in my seat and I grabbed the hands of the friends sitting on either side of me and I listened as Justice Kennedy read his decision. I struggled to understand this legal language and I thought, well, we won. But then I wasn't so certain. 

 

And once it finally really hit me that we did indeed win, that the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land, I burst into tears. I wasn't the only one breaking the usual staid decorum in that courtroom. The silence, the typical silence of that courtroom, was broken by gasps and tears and sobs. It was such a beautiful feeling to realize I could walk out and no longer worry about getting that updated death certificate. 

 

AI and I led our group of plaintiffs and attorneys’ arm in arm through this amazing crowd on the plaza of the courthouse. The air was electric with a palpable sense of joy. And as we wound our way through the crowd, it split before us, and were showered with cheers and tears and smiles and this amazing, utterly happy feeling of celebration. I realized in that moment, for the first time in my life as an out gay man, I feel like an equal American. I did it all, because I loved my husband. 

 

And now, a bit over a year later, I chuckle when I think about Obergefell v. Hodges. I have to pinch myself that that Obergefell that's talking about me. I chuckle when I think about all of these law students for the rest of time [audience laughter] having to learn how to pronounce and spell Obergefell. [audience laughter] [audience applause] 

 

But mostly, I think about John. I think about the love we shared and I think about the fight that we were willing to fight along with so many other plaintiffs. We fought for pieces of paper, marriage licenses, death certificates, birth certificates. When I realize that it's all about a piece of paper, it takes me back to how I ended my vows the day we got married. I'm overjoyed that we finally have a piece of paper that confirms what we've always felt in our hearts, that we're an old married couple who still love each other. “I give you my heart, my soul and everything I am. I am honored to call you husband.” Thank you.