when was same sex marriage legalized in the us

Same-sex marriage was legalized across the United States on June 26, 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry nationwide.

Quick Scoop

• National legalization date: June 26, 2015.

• Key case: Obergefell v. Hodges , a 5–4 Supreme Court decision holding that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

• Before that ruling, same-sex marriage was already legal in many states through state laws and earlier court decisions, but not uniformly across the country.

A bit of context

• The path started with individual states recognizing same-sex marriage, beginning with Massachusetts in 2004, and then spreading through a mix of court rulings and legislation.

• The 2015 decision forced all remaining states that still banned same-sex marriage to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and recognize such marriages from other states.

In simple terms: it became fully legal nationwide on June 26, 2015 —that’s the date most people cite when they ask “when was same sex marriage legalized in the US?”

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.