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Key Facts
- Federal level: Same-sex marriage became a nationwide constitutional right on June 26, 2015, when the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges.
- Massachusetts state level: Massachusetts was the first state to recognize marriages between same-sex couples, beginning in May 2004 after Goodridge.
- Federal and state: Obergefell requires states both to license same-sex marriages and to recognize qualifying marriages performed elsewhere.
- Federal level: Congress added statutory recognition protections through the Respect for Marriage Act in December 2022.
The short answer to when gay marriage was legalized in the United States is June 26, 2015. On that date, Obergefell v. Hodges held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires every state to license marriages between two people of the same sex and recognize those marriages when lawfully performed elsewhere.
The national date differs from the first-state date
Marriage equality developed state by state before the nationwide ruling. Massachusetts became the first state to recognize same-sex marriages in May 2004 after its highest court decided Goodridge v. Department of Public Health.
Other states later adopted marriage equality through court decisions, legislation, or voter action, while some states retained bans until federal courts held them unenforceable.
What Obergefell changed in 2015
Obergefell consolidated disputes from several states and resolved two national questions: whether states must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and whether they must recognize such marriages from other states.
The Supreme Court answered both questions yes under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the United States Constitution.
That ruling made state bans unenforceable even where old constitutional or statutory language remained printed in state law.
The Respect for Marriage Act added a statutory layer
Congress enacted the Respect for Marriage Act on December 13, 2022, as Public Law 117-228.
The statute requires federal recognition of a marriage valid under the law governing where it was entered and protects qualifying out-of-state marriages from recognition denials based on sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin.
The Act did not create the original nationwide constitutional right; it added federal statutory protections after Obergefell.
Why several dates appear in marriage-equality timelines
May 2004 answers which state was first, June 2015 answers when the right applied nationwide, and December 2022 marks the later federal statute.
Those milestones describe different legal events, so none should be substituted for another.
