Marriage

Marriage is a union between people that carries legal recognition, social meaning, and often a shared set of rights and responsibilities. For LGBTQ+ communities it became one of the central civil rights battlegrounds of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The fight for marriage equality sought the same legal standing for same-sex couples that opposite-sex couples already held, covering benefits such as inheritance, hospital visitation, taxation, and parental recognition. In the United States, same-sex couples won the nationwide right to marry through the Supreme Court's 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. The debate raised lasting questions about family, equality, and the role of the state in recognizing relationships.