Lonely Widower Takes Lead in Landmark Gay Marriage Case | Sojourners

Lonely Widower Takes Lead in Landmark Gay Marriage Case

Photo via The Enquirer / Carrie Cochran / USA Today / RNS
Jim Obergefell of Cincinnati is photographed in his living room. Photo via The Enquirer / Carrie Cochran / USA Today / RNS

Jim Obergefell and John Arthur spent more than two decades living quietly together. They were never gay rights activists. Most of their friends weren’t even gay.

“John and I always joked that we were bad gays,” Obergefell recalled, “because the vast majority of our friends are straight couples.”

But when the Supreme Court ruled on June 26, 2013, that the federal government must recognize same-sex marriages, two new activists suddenly were born — one of whom now stands at the threshold of legal history.

Fifteen days after the high court’s ruling — with Arthur in the final stages of Lou Gehrig’s Disease — the couple flew to Maryland on a medically equipped jet to be legally married on the tarmac. Then they flew back home and learned their marriage would not be recognized in Ohio.

“All I thought was, ‘This isn’t right. I’m p—ed off,'” Obergefell, 48, says now, sitting in the silence of his art-filled condominium in Cincinnati’s historic Over the Rhine district.

Read the Full Article

To continue reading this article — and get full access to all our magazine content — subscribe now for as little as $4.95. Your subscription helps sustain our nonprofit journalism and allows us to pay authors for their terrific work! Thank you for your support.
Subscribe Now!