Opinion: A North Carolina woman on love and loss 10 years after Obergefell cleared same-sex marriage

June 26 is the 10-year anniversary of the US Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision, which cleared same-sex marriage nationwide in America. A North Carolina woman talks about how the decision impacted her life, and the loss of her late wife.

[Editor’s Note: Nancy Willow is a longtime North Carolinian whose wife passed away from cancer in 2018.]

Most couples only have one wedding – but my wife Kim and I had three. First, we celebrated joining together in civil union in 2002, one of the first same-sex couples in the entire country to ever be legally recognized by a state. Later that year we had a celebration with our close family and friends. And in 2008 we trekked to Canada so we could finally be legally married.

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There were additional celebrations on top of that – in October 2014 when North Carolinians won the freedom to marry (we had moved to NC two years prior), and then in June 2015 when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality nationwide.

All of these celebrations were joyous and heartfelt and loving. And this year, as we approach the tenth anniversary of the Obergefell v. Hodges decision that established marriage equality nationwide, I am reflecting on each of these celebrations with particular significance.

In June 2016, just a year after Kim and I were finally viewed as married nationwide, Kim was diagnosed with brain cancer. She passed away 19 months later.

Her prognosis was poor – but we were relieved to know that we would be on this journey together, as legally married and respected spouses, without having to justify or prove the nature of our relationship for hospital visitation, medical decision-making, insurance, or any other purpose.

Kim and I were not much different from many other families we knew. We were just two people who fell in love, cultivated a life together, and wanted to showcase this by legally coming together – because we loved each other, and because we were committed to a life together.

Getting married – and being visible and vocal – was also a critical way for both of us to transcend the years that we had spent hiding who we were. We wanted to showcase our love and our identities authentically and without reservation.

Growing up, I did not experience negative messaging from my family regarding LGBTQ+ identities. Instead, the fear of being judged and discriminated against came from within – my own self-consciousness, and messages that I had absorbed through popular culture and politics at large.

But in my personal life with my close family and friends, my coming out was embraced and affirmed.

One of my biggest champions was my father. As a man of faith, my father saw past the awful rhetoric often used against members of the LGBTQ+ community. His love for me, and love for others, surpassed the judgment that many LGBTQ+ people have experienced. As a minister, he used his position to marry Kim and me – and he performed ceremonies for many other LGBTQ+ people, too, risking his own credentials to do so. Even during those early days he was eager to stand on the right side of history.

Kim and I continued being visible wherever and however we could. In 2012, we teamed up with the Campaign for Southern Equality for their “Refuse to Lie” campaign – in which we joined other legally married same-sex couples in North Carolina in jointly filing our state tax returns, despite a directive by the NC Department of Revenue to file as single.

The federal government at the time respected us as married – but our state laws ignored our marriage, and the campaign was a way of shedding light on this injustice. We wanted to communicate to our state that our marriage was real and that their views could not thwart our feelings for one another, and the reality of who we were as a family.

As we mark the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell ruling, I find solace in looking back over my journey with Kim. Today, many LGBTQ+ couples are free to marry their partners without hesitation – and so many lives have been improved and their relationships strengthened because of that freedom.

A recent study from The Williams Institute found that there are more than 800,000 legally married same-sex couples in the U.S., more than double the number who were married prior to the Obergefell decision. The ruling had the most immediate and profound impact in Southern states like North Carolina: Over the past ten years, the percentage of cohabitating same-sex couples who were married grew by 21% – from 38% up to 59%.

To this day, I still think about the emotions that found me the day of the Obergefell decision. There was a sense of peace and belonging that I will never forget, and I so desperately want that for this generation as well.

Though Kim died in 2018, her spirit lives on through all who knew and loved her. I am forever proud and grateful to have been her wife and to have had the opportunity to share a life together.

I am reminded of her and the time we spent together each day. Her memory continues to live on through her family as we live in ways that honor her legacy and the life that we shared – proudly and authentically, knowing that love wins – and prevails no matter what.