Same-sex marriage in the United States has been legal nationwide since June 2015, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that state-level bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.[1][2][3] The court ruled that the denial of marriage licenses and recognition to same-sex couples violates the Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The ruling overturned a precedent, Baker v. Nelson.
Starting in 2003, various lower court decisions, state legislation, and popular referendums had already legalized same-sex marriage to some degree in thirty-eight out of fifty U.S. states, in the U.S. territory Guam, and in the District of Columbia. Following the Supreme Court's June 2013 decision in United States v. Windsor, the federal government recognized same-sex marriage, with federal benefits for married couples connected to either the state of residence or the state in which the marriage was solemnized. Following the decision in Obergefell, same-sex married couples were accorded the same recognition as opposite-sex couples at the federal and state/territory levels.