## Facts

- Indiana and Wisconsin limited civil marriage to one man and one woman and refused to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.
- Same-sex couples were denied state-law rights and responsibilities tied to marriage, including spousal benefits, family protections, and legal recognition of parent-child relationships.
- Plaintiffs included same-sex couples seeking the right to marry in-state and/or recognition of their out-of-state marriages; many were raising children or faced medical and family-law harms from nonrecognition.
- State officials defended the bans, arguing marriage is principally a state tool to encourage heterosexual couples to marry to reduce negative consequences of unintended, nonmarital births.
- Federal district courts in Indiana and Wisconsin held the bans unconstitutional and enjoined enforcement.
- The states appealed, and the Seventh Circuit consolidated the Indiana and Wisconsin appeals.

## Issues

1. Whether state laws barring same-sex couples from marrying and refusing to recognize lawful out-of-state same-sex marriages violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether those laws infringe the fundamental right to marry protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive due process doctrine.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district courts’ judgments invalidating the Indiana and Wisconsin marriage bans and nonrecognition provisions.
- The court held the laws violated the Fourteenth Amendment, principally under equal protection principles and also in light of the fundamental right to marry.
- The court concluded the states failed to provide a sufficient justification for excluding same-sex couples from marriage, even under a demanding form of rational-basis review.
- The court sustained injunctions barring enforcement of the challenged provisions.

## Legal Principles

- A classification that neither targets a suspect class nor burdens a fundamental right is generally upheld if any reasonably conceivable facts supply a rational basis; different scrutiny applies when a law burdens fundamental rights or discriminates against a historically disadvantaged group.
- Discrimination against a minority defined by an immutable characteristic, against a background of discrimination, supports heightened judicial skepticism and requires an actual, plausible connection between the exclusion and legitimate state interests.
- Justifications tied to procreation and “accidental births” are inadequate when they do not explain why same-sex couples must be excluded, especially where exclusion harms children being raised by same-sex couples.
- Underinclusive marriage rationales are undermined where states permit opposite-sex couples who cannot or are unlikely to procreate (e.g., infertile or elderly couples) to marry while excluding same-sex couples.
- Laws that impose concrete harms on a defined group and their families without a legitimate, evidence-based public benefit fail equal protection review.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit held that Indiana and Wisconsin could not constitutionally deny same-sex couples the right to marry or recognition of lawful same-sex marriages, because the exclusions burdened a fundamental interest and discriminatorily harmed same-sex couples and their children without an adequate governmental justification under the Fourteenth Amendment.


Baskin v. Bogan, 766 F.3d 648 (7th Cir. 2014)