Two years after his husband’s death, Jim Obergefell still wears a wedding ring.
Two rings, in fact. Obergefell asked a jeweler, a high-school friend of his late husband, John Arthur, to fuse their two bands together, with a channel carved inside to hold some of Arthur’s ashes.
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“It’s something I don’t take off,” Obergefell says, holding the ring in his hands with a solemn smile. “John is with me every day.”
Obergefell shared his love story in St. Louis City Hall Wednesday, standing with two gay couples who married there illegally a year ago to challenge Missouri’s ban on same-sex marriage. Obergefell lives in Cincinnati, but it’s his legal case against the state of Ohio that brought him to St. Louis, another river city in a state that prohibits same-sex marriage.
Obergefell is suing to be named on his husband’s death certificate, and his case, Obergefell v. Hodges, went to the U.S. Supreme Court this year. A ruling in his favor would pave the way for legalized same-sex marriage across the country and land his name in the history books alongside Roe and Brown. (So let’s learn how to pronounce it now, shall we? Oh-ber-guh-fel.)
Obergefell says he’s expecting good news when the court announces its ruling later this month. “I’m hopeful,” he says, “but I also know we can’t take anything for granted with this court.”
But for Obergefell and LGBT people in Missouri, the fight for marriage equality is only the beginning. Missouri’s state laws (like Ohio’s) don’t protect from housing or employment discrimination. Even if the Supreme Court upholds same-sex marriage, a St. Louis gay couple that shares wedding photos on Friday could be fired and evicted by Monday.
“I promise to keep up the fight for the LGBT community until full equality is achieved,” Obergefell said Wednesday. “We are leaving too many people behind.”
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon called on the Missouri legislature to update the state’s non-discrimination code to protect LGBT people in 2014. Despite bipartisan support, the bill hasn’t made it to the House floor for three straight years.
Obergefell, who stopped in St. Louis on a five-city tour organized by the Human Rights Campaign, says he and Arthur never encountered workplace discrimination, housing discrimination, or violent homophobia during their two decades together. They had a different struggle. The couple married in a minutes-long ceremony aboard a small plane on the Baltimore-Washington International Airport tarmac, so Arthur could have access to the medical equipment that he needed to treat his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. The disease claimed his life three months later.
Obergefell, who says he wasn’t much of a pro-LGBT activist until after his marriage, began his legal campaign two years ago because he wants Arthur’s death certificate to note that he was married. Otherwise, he says, “[his] last official record as a person will be wrong.”
Along the way, Obergefell’s personal quest has swollen into a national—even worldwide—cause. With his husband’s memory on his hand and in his heart, he’s embracing his new role in America’s civil-rights history.
“My love can’t wait anymore,” he says.
