From the Second Row: A Story of Love and Law

Today’s wisdom walk was an interview with James Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized same sex marriage.

He and his longtime partner, John, had gotten married in Maryland while John was very near death from ALS. However, it quickly became clear that their home state, Ohio, would not recognize the marriage and when John died, he would be identified as single with no spouse on his death certificate.

This erasure of his marriage to John was what led Obergefell, now Jim to us, to join with others to sue in federal court. The case eventually ended up at the Supreme Court and that decision is how same sex marriage came to be legal and recognized in the United States.

The interview, conducted by a beloved former judge at a local university, started at the beginning. “Tell me how you met John,” the judge asked. And, so, the story unfolded – a twenty-two-year love story that included, at the very end, chartering a medical jet, using donations from friends and family, to fly to a state where gay marriage was legal, saying their vows on the plane on the tarmac, and flying home. Getting married “changed everything,” Jim said. And the married people in the audience nodded. It does.

Of course, there’s much more to the story. I can’t do it justice here. I can tell you that I sat in the second row in a big auditorium beaming for the entire hour. It was the love of it, the persistence, the true belief in one’s cause, the stamina, and the profound gentleness – all around the gentleness. I wanted Jim to be my brother or my son. I wanted to be part of his aura.

I was so lucky to be there. I’ve learned how to do that in my old age – go where I feel lucky. It’s a gift. It really is.

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Today’s event was at the Lubar Center at the Marquette University Law School and was moderated by former judge Derek Mosley.