Arizona gay marriage laws
Ballot initiatives protecting marriage equality advancing in some states
An increasing number of states are taking steps to enshrine protections for same-sex marriage in their constitutions following a prosperous round of ballot initiatives in the 2024 elections.
Voters in Hawaii, Colorado and California all voted last year to support ballot initiatives that changed their state constitutions to give same-sex couples the right to marry. But now, the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage is being actively targeted by some conservative lawmakers. The Idaho House passed a resolution in slow January by a vote of 46-24 calling on the Supreme Court to reconsider its past marriage equality decision.
The Idaho resolution comes after Associate Justice Clarence Thomas expressed interest in revisiting the Obergefell v. Hodges same-sex marriage decision, should a future related court case arise, in his concurring belief on the court's landmark 2022 judgment on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that overturned the federal right to abortion. He argued that any past "substantive due process decision is 'demonstrably erroneous'"
Serving openly in military in Arizona is lesbians, gays, bisexuals permitted, transgender people banned.
On February 10th, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth filed in court a memo relating to President Trumpâs executive order from the previous month.
From then until March 18th, 2025, The U.S. military prohibited transgender individuals from enlisting and ceased providing or supporting gender transition procedures for service members.
Across the country the legal landscape for same-sex marriage is changing, and brisk. In the Southwest in recent weeks, courts in New Mexico and Utah have delivered victories to gay marriage proponents. Now in neighboring Arizona, some gay and lesbian couples are challenging their state’s definition of marriage.
From the Fronteras Desk, Jude Joffe-Block reports.
The two lead plaintiffs in the case are couple Joe Connolly and Terry Pochert. On a recent evening the pair prepared dinner together in their kitchen in Maricopa.
“Cheese soup for dinner tonight,” Pochert said.
“We like no-fuss meals,” said Connolly as he added croutons to a salad.
The couple has been sharing no-fuss meals for almost 19 years.
Before they ate, the two men said grace.
Pochert and Connolly’s faith – they attend a Lutheran church – is a large reason why they possess decided to challenge Arizona laws that don’t identify same-sex marriage.
“Gay and queer woman people in the articulate in faiths where they allow same-sex marriage — but the state does not — it is denying gay and dyke people of faith the right to the sacrament of marriage,” Connolly said.
The couple was married legally in California in 2008.
In Perry v. Schwarzenegger, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker held that Proposition 8—an amendment to the California Constitution that prohibits same-sex couples from marrying—violates the Due Process and Matching Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. To date, legal experts have claimed that although Determine Walker’s factual findings may be novel and significant, his legal analysis is familiar and not likely to own a significant impact on the future of same-sex marriage law. This Article argues that the common wisdom about Judge Walker’s decision is misguided, because it overlooks novel aspects of Assess Walker’s legal investigation that have the potential to produce valuable contributions to the development of same-sex marriage rule, in this case and others. By building upon passages from Judge Walker’s ruling, the Article develops three modern challenges to the constitutionality of laws that prohibit gay couples from marrying. Part I argues that the historical relationship between discrimination based on sex and discrimination based on sexual orientation can provide a basis for applying heightened scrutiny to laws against homosexual marriage under the Due Process Clause, as an alternative
The Freedom to Marry in Arizona
Winning Marriage:October 17, 2014
Same-sex couples began marrying in Arizona on October 17, 2014 after U.S. District Court Judge Sedwick dictated in favor of the freedom to marry in a federal legal case challenging the state’s anti-marriage laws. The ruling came ten days after the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the freedom to marry in cases from Nevada and Idaho on October 7.
History and the Path to Victory:
- April 1975: Anti-gay forces in Arizona force a bill through the legislature restricting marriage to different-sex couples after a same-sex couple receives a marriage license in the state. The marriage license is later revoked.
- 1996: The Arizona Legislature passes a state statute restricting marriage to different-sex couples and denying respect to any marriages between gay couples performed in other states. Governor Fife Symington III signs the statue. A similar statute is again passed in 1999.
- November 6, 2006: Anti-marriage forces attempt to ban queer couples from marriage or any other legal family status with Proposition 107, but voters reject the measure, in a narr