In 2015, the Supreme Court declared in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples had a fundamental right to marry. Many states had traditionally banned such couples from marrying or receiving certain benefits given to married couples. The Court’s opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, reads: “marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”