It’s a strange place we’re in right now with regard to LGBTQ rights, and specifically the right to marry. Federal law currently ensures that right, and the vast majority of Americans support these marriages. But recent rulings have the LGBTQ community worried about the future of this right: The 2022 Dobbs ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court undid Roe v Wade, then Justice Thomas signaled that he wanted to go after the right to same-sex marriage (Obergefell v Hodges).

In Wisconsin, even before the landmark 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationally, that right was granted statewide on June 6, 2014 when U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb struck down Wisconsin’s same-sex marriage ban, ruling it unconstitutional. Many couples, wanting to seize their opportunity before someone changed their mind, made hurried plans and flooded local municipalities to get married. Their instinct proved true, as “The rush to wed prompted Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen late Friday to file an emergency motion aimed at stopping the marriages, arguing that the order should be put on hold pending appeal,” according to an article from 2014 by the Wisconsin State Journal. The state reinstated same-sex marriage in October, and then the Obergefell decision came down the following year. Despite Wisconsin having legal same-sex marriage before 2015, many worry that if the nationwide ruling is overturned, that Wisconsin would risk reverting back to the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marraige that the 2014 ruling overturned, making it illegal to marry a partner of the same sex in the state. They have reason to worry, given that the Dobbs decision reverted Wisconsin back to a 1849 law that prohibited legal abortions in the state.

But before diving into the challenges to come, we would be remiss to not acknowledge what the 2014 ruling in Wisconsin did for couples who were finally, FINALLY able to marry their partners, regardless of gender. In the week between the initial ruling and the temporary stop, 215 same-sex couples were married in Dane County alone, and 600 couples statewide applied for licenses. While the 1990s were marred by many states adding language to their constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman, the 2000s saw the shell start to crack, and more and more states legalized the marriages, creating a confusing patchwork of laws and places where same-sex couples could be married. This meant those marriages may or may not have been recognized in their home state, if it differed from where they married, and it wasn’t recognized federally.

To understand why marriage is such an important right, legally speaking, we need to understand what is gained when a couple is married. Tax benefits are the obvious first gains of marriage, but also rights of inheritance, social security benefits, and the ability to be on a spouse’s health insurance plan. In family law, a spouse can adopt the children of the other, and when a spouse falls ill, the other can visit them even when there are family restrictions, and make medical decisions when the other is incapacitated or otherwise unable to make them. Even in 2014, when same-sex couples in Wisconsin were allowed to marry before it was legal nationally, many of these rights gave a sense of peace to couples, many of whom had spent decades together with no legal protections prior to the 2014 ruling. Of the eight plaintiffs in the case in Wisconsin, half had been together for longer than a decade, with one couple, Carol Schumacher and Virginia Wolf, having been together for 38 years, with their first date being in 1975.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey for 2022, Wisconsin is home to over 17,000 same-sex couples, and about 56% are married. Dane County by itself had 3,138 same-sex couples in the 2020 census, making it #1 in Wisconsin, and #4 nationally. These numbers bring to the fore just how many people are vulnerable to the potential attacks and revoking of rights that might be coming down the line, especially if there is a second Trump term. When Justice Thomas singled out same-sex marriage as something he felt was decided incorrectly, and wanted to correct in his Dobbs decision, (an irony considering that the same precedent, that of the right to privacy, also ensures the legality of his own marriage to a white woman as a black man), many LGBTQ people started to fear the worst. Some moved up their wedding dates, many sought the council of lawyers to ensure the protection of their home and family in the event that their marriage should be voided, and the community as a whole felt a sense of unease.

It was because of this fear that Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin U.S. Senator and out lesbian woman, proposed the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that became law in late 2022, less than a year after the Dobbs decision came down. This act, while not protecting the right to get married in all states should Obergefell be rescinded, does protect the marriages that are already in place, and compels states that don’t allow same-sex marriages within their borders to legally recognize these marriages if they are made elsewhere. According to an NPR article that came out when the Respect for Marriage Act was passed, “If the Court were to overturn Obergefell, the legality of same-sex marriages would revert to state law—and the majority of states would prohibit it. The Respect for Marriage Act wouldn’t change that, but it requires all states to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states and federally recognizes these marriages.” The article continued, “It also repeals the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.”

While the Respect for Marriage Act certainly assuaged some fears, it still isn’t full protection under the law, and states are still allowed to prohibit same-sex marriages within their borders. This would bring back the pre-2015 complicated mess of state laws, and would force people to travel, sometimes great distances and to great expense, to get married. In Wisconsin, many fear that the 2014 law would be bypassed, and our state would revert back to a total ban. The sense of security and safety that marriage provided 10 years ago to those 600+ couples who managed to marry in the week after the ruling, is at risk, especially as we move into another national election cycle, where there is a real chance that we could have a second Trump term. Project 2025, while not actively singling out same-sex marriage, would actively seek to undermine other Supreme Court cases that guarantee rights to LGBTQ people, like in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which “the court found that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in banning sex discrimination in the workplace, also bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” according to The Advocate.

So, in celebrating this win, while keeping an eye on the potential coming storm, we in Wisconsin, often referred to as “the first gay rights state,” should keep the hope, celebrate the win, but also get legal affairs in order and protect ourselves from what might come to be.