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The two Supreme Court rulings on same sex wedlock Wednesday ( June 26 ) are not the first to radically change life sentence for some family . In today ’s rulings , the Courtstruck down the Defense of Marriage Act(DOMA ) while force out the case concerning Proposition 8 , effectively open up the doors for same - sex marriage to summarise in California . Twelve country and the District of Columbia currently allow same - gender spousal relationship . More than 18,000 same - sex couples were married in California before Proposition 8 , according to the Associated Press .
Here ’s a tone at the history of Supreme Court rulings that have shape what it means to be a family in the United States , from sales booth on contraceptive method to mental illness .
1 . Loving v. Virginia ( 1967 )
In the summertime of 1958 , newlyweds Mildred and Richard Loving faced a option : spend one yr in jail , or front 25 old age in exile from the State Department of Virginia . The twain married legally in Washington , D.C. , but Judge Leone M. Bazile harness their newfangled marriage ceremony a offense against a Virginia commonwealth law that forbid interbreeding , orinterracial marriage , because Mildred , then 17 , was black and Native American , and Richard , 23 , was bloodless . [ I Do n’t : 5 Myths About Marriage ]
In issuing the opinion , Bazile wrote , " Almighty God make the race white , black , icteric , Malayan and red , and he placed them on separate continents … The fact that he part the race point that he did not intend for the races to mix . "
The Lovings choose to be in exile until they and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the constitutionality of the Virginia law in 1964 .
" After Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 , that was a big turning point . A muckle of State Department overturn their anti - miscegenation jurisprudence … and there were a few that did n’t , " Gloria Browne - Marshall say .
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Lovings , thereby voiding existing anti - miscegenation law in 16 body politic .
" I do n’t think there was a big recoil against that determination , " suppose Daniel Feldman , an associate prof at John Jay College . But a deficiency of backlash did n’t entail reflexive public backup . A Gallup poll parrot in 1968 showed 73 pct of Americans opposed interracial marriage ceremony . foeman shed to 42 percentage in 1991 and to 17 percent by 2007 .
Today , " Most of the argument … used Loving v. Virginia as the core argument forrepealing DOMAand Proposition 8 , " Browne - Marshall say .
2 . Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp. ( 1971 )
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination by sexual activity , but pile of companies at the time broadly interpreted the law . Newspapers still listed separate wishing ads for men and char in 1970 .
When Ida Phillips apply for a business as an aircraft assembler in 1966 , the Martin Marietta Corp. said it would not view her because she had preschool - years fry . The Supreme Court ruled against Martin Marietta , but get off the pillow slip back for retrial to see if the company could feel enough substantiation that women with young children were ineffective to do in the spot as well asmen with vernal children .
In his conclusion , Justice Thurgood Marshall added , " I fear that in this case , where the issue is not squarely before us , the Court has fallen into the trap of take on that the Act allow ancient canards about the right office of women to be a footing for discrimination . "
Still , Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp. repose the basis for future cases found on sex stereotypes .
3 . Griswold v. Connecticut ( 1965 )
Estelle Griswold and C. Lee Buxton were directors of a Planned Parenthood Center in New Haven , Conn. , in 1961 when they were arrested as accessory to the crime of providing contraceptives . [ 10 Ways Birth Control Has Changed Through History ]
The law that allowed their hitch see back to the 1873 federal Comstock Act , which censor posting or distributing denotative material , include information about contraceptives .
Griswold and Buxton appealed their convictions and in 1965 , the Supreme Court rule that Connecticut ’s law " violates the right field of marital secrecy which is within the penumbra of specific guarantees ofthe Bill of Rights . " Unmarried women profit approach to contraception in every state of matter after another opinion , Eisenstadt vs. Baird , in 1972 .
But more than 40 years later , contraception tilt still flame .
" We just had these issues of Obamacare requiring employers to pay for contraceptive method , " said Gloria Browne - Marshall , an associate prof of constitutional jurisprudence at John Jay College , in New York City and author of the account book " Race , Law , and American Society : 1607 to Present " ( Taylor & Francis , 2007 ) .
The brass was also fighting against making theemergency contraceptive Plan B , which can prevent gestation after unprotected sexual activity , available to teens under 17 without a ethical drug . But in the beginning this month it throw off the scrap .
4 . Roe v. Wade ( 1973 )
Jane Roe is a anonym for the woman who brought a class - action suit against Henry Wade , a district attorney in Texas in 1970 . Roe was pregnant , unmarried and denied anabortionat the metre .
In 1973 , the Supreme Court found that the right to privateness , as mean by the Bill of Rights , allowed a woman to legally seek an abortion without interference from the state . But the homage gave state the right to influence abortion after the first trimester , and the right hand to restrict abortions in some casing after viability , often take for to be 20 to 23 week into the pregnancy . [ bust : 11 Big Fat Pregnancy Myths ]
Forty years later , states are still passing new abortion law . The Guttmacher Institute counted 43 new stateprovisions restricting abortionsin 2012 . There were more than 90 new provisions in 2011 .
sound abortion after Roe v. Wade go up to a point in 1980 , when 1.6 million were performed , but the issue has been on the decline . In 2008 , 1.21 million abortions were performed in the United States .
Roe eventually came frontwards as Norma McCorvey . By the meter the 1973 decision was issued , she had given the baby up for adoption . McCorvey worked in an miscarriage clinic years after the ruling , but then said she regret her part in Roe v. Wade , and became an anti - abortion advocator . She lived with a lesbian partner for decades until converting to Catholicism .
5 . Wisconsin v. Yoder ( 1972 )
exemption of religionand the importance of breeding came head - to - head in the 1972 case of Wisconsin v. Yoder .
Wisconsin state police required minor to stay in school until age 16 . But Adin Yutzy , Jonas Yoder and Wallace Miller — all members of the Amish community of interests — pulled their children out of school day at 14 and 16 . Other commonwealth with large Amish populations , such as Pennsylvania , compromise by produce part - time vocational schools run by Amish teachers .
But Wisconsin prosecute the families and break water them $ 5 each . The Supreme Court rule in favor of the family line , who argued the conviction violated their First and 14th Amendment rights .
6 . O’Conner v. Donaldson ( 1975 )
Kenneth Donaldson was committed to a Florida State genial infirmary in 1957 at the request of his father , who say he was suffering from psychotic belief . Donaldson was kept there for confining to 15 years against his will , despite evidence showing he was n’t tearing , and was capable of living outside the infirmary .
The Supreme Court ruled the hospital had violated Donaldson ’s rights under the 14th Amendment . It observe , " In shortsighted , a United States Department of State can not constitutionally confine , without more [ evidence ] , a nondangerous soul who is open of surviving safely in freedom by himself or with the help of uncoerced and responsible for family members or friends . "
The decision protected against the nightmarish scenario of a reasonably sane person trap indefinitely in a genial hospital . But some mental health advocate say some interpretations of the case made it difficult for class to help their loved ones .
