United States 
Canada (EN) 
México 
France 
Deutschland 
United Kingdom 
Quick Hits
- June 26, 2025, marked the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision recognizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
- The Obergefell v. Hodges decision had important legal implications for employers’ benefit plans.
- Existing federal law bans discrimination in hiring and firing on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, while twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., also have laws banning workplace discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Ten years ago, the Supreme Court decided in Obergefell v. Hodges to give all same-sex couples in the United States the right to marry. The case arose from challenges to Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee laws that banned same-sex marriages and refused to recognize legally valid same-sex marriages performed in other states.
The Court answered two questions. First, does the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment require states to license a marriage between two people of the same sex? Second, does the Constitution require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was licensed lawfully in a different state?
On June 26, 2015, the Court decided yes to both questions. It held that the right to marry is a “fundamental right” and inherent to an individual’s personal liberty, thus requiring states to give full faith and credit to same-sex marriages performed in other states and countries.
The result was that same-sex couples living in states that had prohibited same-sex marriage were able to get married in their states. This had implications for employers’ health plans, retirement plans, and leaves of absence policies, among other rights. For example, employees could add their same-sex spouses as dependents under their employers’ health plans, list their same-sex spouses as automatic beneficiaries in 401(k) plans, and take time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to care for the serious illness of their same-sex spouses. Employees also could add their same-sex spouses’ children as dependents under employers’ health plans.
Federal law bestows many rights on married couples, such as filing taxes jointly, having joint parental rights, joint adoption and foster care, receiving an inheritance without paying estate taxes after the death of a spouse, visiting a spouse in a hospital, and being recognized as next-of-kin for medical decision-making.
Immediately following the Obergefell decision, legions of same-sex couples flocked to courthouses and other locations to get married. In the 10 years since the decision, the percentage of Americans supporting same-sex marriages has increased substantially. Sixty-nine percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage in 2024, up from 42 percent in 2004, according to a recent national poll of more than 1,000 adults.
Some same-sex couples felt more inclined to adopt a child or undergo fertility treatments after they knew their marriages would be recognized nationwide. The Respect for Marriage Act, enacted in 2022, requires the federal government and all states to recognize the marriages of same-sex and interracial couples performed validly in any state.
In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that employers may not lawfully fire or refuse to hire employees for being “homosexual” or transgender because discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation is inherently discrimination because of sex, violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., have laws prohibiting workplace discrimination and harassment based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Additional states and locales prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender expression, further building on Supreme Court authority in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins prohibiting gender stereotyping as sex discrimination under Title VII.
Despite existing federal and state law, on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump released Executive Order (EO) 14168, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which established the new federal government policy recognizing only two binary and immutable genders: male and female. On January 28, 2025, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Acting Chair Andrea R. Lucas rolled back much of the Biden-era technical assistance that barred workplace harassment and discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals. However, Acting Chair Lucas also acknowledged in her confirmation hearing that Bostock remains the law of the land, which is especially crucial to understand, given EO 14168 cannot change existing federal law.
Next Steps
Obergefell and Bostock remain good law and offer ongoing protections for LGBTQ+ employees. Employers can expect to continue covering biological children, adopted children, and stepchildren of same-sex couples in their health plans.
The FMLA and some state laws require employers to provide job-protected, unpaid leave for employees to care for a seriously ill spouse, regardless of sexual orientation. Employers can voluntarily include same-sex spouses and domestic partners in their policies regarding bereavement leave and paid leave to care for a family member.
Ogletree Deakins will continue to monitor developments and will provide updates on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Compliance, Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation, and Employment Law blogs as new information becomes available. This article and more information on how the Trump administration’s actions impact employers can be found on Ogletree Deakins’ New Administration Resource Hub.
Nonnie L. Shivers is a shareholder in Ogletree Deakins’ Phoenix office.
This article was co-authored by Leah J. Shepherd, who is a writer in Ogletree Deakins’ Washington, D.C., office.
Follow and Subscribe
