1971: The first same-sex couple to be legally married

Baker/McConnell marriage license

In August of ‘71, Baker and McConnell successfully receive a license from the State Of Minnesota, becoming the first same-sex couple granted a license to legally marry. Although the license is solemnized a few days later (September 3) in a religious ceremony and properly returned to the state for recording, the registrar refuses to record it.

At the end of that year, the Minnesota Supreme Court returns a decision in Baker v. Nelson, confirming a lower court ruling that state law “does not authorize marriage between persons of the same sex”. In its decision, however, it overlooks an essential factor in Loving which it relies on for precedent.

Remember that Loving made a first finding on race, and made an explicit second finding on liberty and due process. The Baker court ignores that second holding however, saying,

The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment… is not offended by the state’s classification of persons authorized to marry. There is no irrational or invidious discrimination. Petitioners note that the state does not impose upon heterosexual married couples a condition that they have a proved capacity or declared willingness to procreate, posing a rhetorical demand that this court must read such condition into the statute if same-sex marriages are to be prohibited. … Loving v. Virginia… does not militate against this conclusion. Virginia’s antimiscegenation statute, prohibiting interracial marriages, was invalidated solely on the grounds of its patent racial discrimination.

It won’t be the last court to ignore the second part of the Loving decision.

Singer and Barwick
magazine article, 1971

Also that year, a female couple, Donna Berkett and Manonia Evans, sues Milwaukee County Clerk Thomas Zablocki for the right to marry in Wisconsin. They withdraw the suit before it’s heard.

And in Seattle, John Singer and Paul Barwick also try to obtain a marriage license. They’re turned down and they sue.

Timeline key: progress (green), no progress (red), pending court cases (purple),
events that are neutral, not directly related, or with both positive and negative effects (black)