Washington Post Profiles Main SCOTUS Same-Sex Marriage Plaintiff Jim Obergefell

Via the Washington Post:

Jim Obergefell cannot fathom hearing his name mentioned alongside Brown or Roe. For one thing, he knows people will mispronounce it. (It’s Oh-ber-guh-fell.) And he never wanted to be the face of a movement or a legal groundbreaker. “I’m just Jim,” he said. “I just stood up for our marriage.”

It was not a long marriage, just three months and 11 days — the time it took his husband, John Arthur, to struggle to say, “I thee wed,” and then die from ALS. Now their union, and the 20-year relationship that preceded it, is at the center of Obergefell v. Hodges, the title case of four consolidated appeals the Supreme Court will hear this month to decide whether gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.

For Obergefell, the case is simply about that tricky-to-pronounce name: He wants it on Arthur’s death certificate as the surviving spouse, an idea the state of Ohio, where same-sex marriage is illegal, opposes. Should Obergefell win, history books will probably take a more expansive view of his quest.

Hit the link and read the rest. You might need a tissue.