Ohio man 'fought for his love,' won gay-marriage case

WASHINGTON — When the moment finally came, when his two-year legal battle for equality ended in an historic victory that meant Ohio would have to recognize his same-sex marriage, one emotion swept over Jim Obergefell and drowned out almost everything else.

"I missed my husband," Obergefell said, recalling that he began to cry almost as soon as Justice Anthony Kennedy started reading his majority opinion making gay marriage a fundamental right across the United States. His tears kept flowing as he sat in the courtroom and thought of how John Arthur, his partner of more than 20 years who died in 2013, would have been so proud and so thrilled with the court's sweeping decision.

"This is for you John," Obergefell said when he emerged from the Supreme Court on Friday morning, greeted by a crush of reporters and a throng of supporters.

"Our love is equal," he said, clasping a photo of Arthur over his heart.

In the space of a few months, the Cincinnati resident has become the face of the fight for gay marriage — an icon and a hero to the hundreds of activists who waited in subdued anticipation outside the court Friday before erupting in celebration when the decision was announced. But for Obergefell and Arthur, it started out as something very personal.

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After being together for two decades. Obergefell and Arthur got married in 2013 — flying to Maryland where same-sex marriage was already legal for a 7½-minute ceremony on the tarmac. At the time, Arthur was in the final stages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, and his aunt performed the ceremony on the plane.

When they returned to Cincinnati, they learned that Ohio would refuse to put Obergefell's name on Arthur's death certificate. So they decided to file a lawsuit challenging Ohio's ban on same-sex marriage.

As Obergefell and Arthur's challenge made its way through the courts, it was combined with a half dozen other lawsuits filed by 32 couples, widowers and children in four states. Obergefell's lawsuit drew the lowest case number, putting his name ahead of the others.

"With John (so ill), we didn't know if we had a day, a week," Obergefell recalled Thursday. "We knew it as bigger than us, but we were living in the moment."

He never imagined it would be this much bigger, so big that President Obama would call to thank him for being brave enough to start that legal fight, that a bank of national reporters would be desperate to talk to him, that a team of public-relations handlers would whisk from through a dizzying barrage of interview requests.

"Sorry, I'm being dragged away," Obergefell said to supporters in the crowd seeking his autograph, asking for a photo, and offering their congratulations. Obergefell took the president's call live on CNN and moments later, his phone rang again. It was Vice President Joe Biden.

As one interviewer after another asked him to describe his emotions, he said it simply wasn't possible.

"I can't even put it into words," said the soft-spoken Obergefell, a real estate broker.

Moments later, as yet another reporter jostled into position and asked what Obama said to him, Obergefell looked blank, as if he might not remember the president's words. Then they came flooding back.

"He said he was proud of me for putting myself out here," Obergefell said.

Later, he made his way back to the autograph seekers, signing copies of the Supreme Court opinion legalizing gay marriage and seemingly speechless that it bore his name: Obergefell v. Hodges.

"I know I have a lot of this going on," he said, looking around at the mayhem outside the court. "But ... it is really just knowing my marriage, my 20-year relationship with John — Ohio can never erase that now. And that's a very good feeling."

Obergefell always has said that he and Arthur were not the activist types. But swept up in the national gay-rights fight, Obergefell said there would be no turning back now.

"Some people might think we have put this to rest," he said, but state legislators will try to write laws around it, opponents will look for new ways to fight it, and discrimination against gays and lesbians will continue.

"So, no it isn't put to rest," he said. "We will have to continue to fight, to really live this ruling."

For now though, Obergefell said he was looking forward to flying back home, being in his own bed, surrounded by reminders of John Arthur.

"I'm looking forward to a quiet night, to just let it sink in, and just quietly revel in the fact that I fought for my love and we won," he said.

Contributing: Richard Wolf, USA TODAY