Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that same-sex couples have the same right to marry as couples of the opposite sex. In particular for Michigan, this means that the state's constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage is no longer valid. This also means that the state has many laws and forms to update quickly, as many of Michigan's laws are written assuming that marriage is between a man and a woman.
A ruling based on the 14th Amendment
Here's a brief analysis on how the court made its decision. The first point is that this ruling is based on the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically the last two clauses of the first section:
"nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"
The court specifically said that the freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment are not limited to some specific set, but must be interpreted based on what we learn that freedom means to this nation over time. "The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.” Page 664 of 576 U.S. 644 (2015).
The court then gave examples of how marriage equality has changed through the history of this country. Inter-racial marriage was once illegal in places. Most states once held that a married woman had no legal identity separate from her husband. At various times states have attempted to ban marriage by prison inmates or by men who were behind on child-support payments.
Four Principles of Equality
The court then lays out four "principles and traditions" to show that the right to marriage is a fundamental right for all couples.
1. Right to Personal Choice
The court states that the right to choose who we marry is one of many intimate choices a person can make, and that that right of choice is "inherent in the concept of individual autonomy." That court goes on to say that through marriage, two people are able to find other freedoms, "such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality." The ability for the bond of marriage to bring these freedoms is the same for same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples.
2. Marriage is a unique and intimate union of two people.
No other institution brings two people as close together as marriage. It is a right older than the Bill of Rights, and to deny this unique institution to some people would be a violate of the right of equal protection.
3. Marriage safeguards children and families.
Many children are being raised by same-sex couples. Most states allow same-sex couples to adopt, or allow homosexual people to adopt as an individual. Children of unmarried couples are at a legal, and social disadvantage compared to children with married parents. To treat same-sex couples as somehow lesser than opposite-sex couples would also treating children of those couples as somehow lesser.
4. Marriage is a keystone of social order.
The court quotes Alexis de Tocqueville, writing almost 200 years ago, that "[t]here is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is so much respected as in America . . ." According to the court, American tradition has for centuries regarded marriage as a "building block of our national community." To exclude some couples from marriage would be to weaken our national order and stability.
Same-sex marriage is not a new right.
Finally, the court made it clear that it is not creating some new "right to same-sex marriage," but that it is merely stating that same sex couples have the same fundamental right to marriage as all couples should have. In the same way that the court has previously said that interracial couples have the same rights as same-race couples.
The issue decided wasn't whether same-sex couples should have some new right, but whether there was sufficient justification to exclude those couples from that right. The court concluded that there was no justifiable reason for such exclusion, and that laws banning same-sex marriage violate the constitution.