The South Portico is illuminated in Pride colors in honor of the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act Tuesday, December 13, 2022, on the South Lawn of the White House. | Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel celebrated Pride month and the ninth anniversary of the Obergefell v. Hodges decision at the White House Wednesday.
The Democratic AG has a history of defending the LGBTQ+ community in Michigan. Prior to Obergefell, she was the lead attorney in a Michigan case rolled into the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Attorney General Dana Nessel and her wife Alanna Maguire, at the White House Pride Celebration | Nessel office photo
“In the nine years since the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, we have been hard at work and I’m happy to join First Lady Jill Biden and many others this year in DC to reaffirm the promise of Obergefell nearly a decade since its passage,” Nessel said in a release.
Nessel also helped form a collaborative of attorneys to investigate capital crimes committed against LGBTQ+ people in the state and argued for a reinterpretation of Michigan’s equal rights law to protect people from discrimination based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
In the release, Nessel acknowledged the potential threat to same-sex marriage from the U.S. Supreme Court. A concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and made abortion illegal again in many states, questioned other decisions based on the right to privacy, including Obergefell.
“However, there is not a day that goes by in which I take this victory for granted,” Nessel said in a release. “These rights hinge on a Supreme Court which has shown interest in reconsidering Obergefell, akin to their ruling which overturned Roe just two years ago.”
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