Washington 7,061,530 November 6, 2012 December 6, 2012 Legislative statute → referendum Passed by the Washington State Legislature; suspended by petition and referred to Referendum 74, approved. Virginia 8,326,289 July 28, 2014 October 6, 2014 Federal courtroom decision → Legislative statute U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruling in Bostic v. Rainey. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s ruling. Nevada 2,839,099 October 7, 2014 October 9, 2014 Federal courtroom choice → legislative statute Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Sevcik v. Sandoval. July 23, 2014 Federal courtroom choice → legislative statute U.S. Oregon 3,970,239 May 19, 2014 May 19, 2014 Federal courtroom determination → legislative statute U.S. Vermont 626,562 April 7, 2009 September 1, 2009 Legislative statute Passed by the Vermont General Assembly, overriding Governor Jim Douglas’ veto. Rhode Island 1,055,173 May 2, 2013 August 1, 2013 Legislative statute Passed by the Rhode Island General Assembly and signed into regulation by the Governor of Rhode Island. Maryland 5,976,407 November 6, 2012 January 1, 2013 Legislative statute → referendum Civil Marriage Protection Act passed by the Maryland General Assembly; petitioned to referendum Question 6, upheld. August 4, 2010 June 28, 2013 Federal courtroom resolution → legislative statute U.S.

Minnesota 5,457,173 May 14, 2013 August 1, 2013 Legislative statute Passed by the Minnesota Legislature and signed into regulation by the Governor of Minnesota. North Carolina 9,943,964 October 10, 2014 October 10, 2014 Federal court docket determination → legislative statute U.S. West Virginia 1,850,326 October 9, 2014 October 9, 2014 Binding federal courtroom precedent → actions of state officials → federal courtroom resolution Governor Earl Ray Tomblin and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, recognizing the precedent established by the Fourth Circuit ruling in Bostic v. Schaefer, dropped their defense of the state’s similar-intercourse marriage ban. In 2007, Mildred Loving, the joint plaintiff alongside her husband Richard Loving in the landmark civil rights case of Loving v. Virginia in 1967, through which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down all state bans on inter-racial marriage, issued a statement on the 40th anniversary of the ruling during which she expressed her help for identical-intercourse marriage and described it as a civil proper akin to inter-racial marriage, stating that “I believe all Americans, no matter their race, irrespective of their intercourse, irrespective of their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry”. Supreme Court of excessive-profile legal cases for Proposition 8 and DOMA in March 2013. The “purple equal signal” project started by the Human Rights Campaign was an electronic marketing campaign primarily primarily based on Facebook that inspired users to alter their profile images to a red equal sign to express support for same-intercourse marriage.

On the time of the court hearings, an estimated 2.5 million Facebook users changed their profile photographs to a red equal sign. The NAACP, the main African-American civil rights group, has pledged its support for gay rights and identical-intercourse marriage, stating that they “support marriage equality in line with equal protection under the regulation supplied under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution”, and has declared that same-intercourse marriage is a civil proper. In 2009, Julian Bond, a leader of the civil rights motion and a chairman of the NAACP, expressed his support for identical-intercourse marriage and acknowledged that “gay rights are civil rights”. Prominent figures within the civil rights motion have expressed their assist for identical-sex marriage. In 2004, Coretta Scott King, a frontrunner of the civil rights motion and the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., expressed her help for same-intercourse marriage and publicly denounced attempts to outline marriage because the “union of a man and a woman” as a type of “gay bashing”.

In the United States and Canada, skilled organizations together with the American Anthropological Association, the American Counseling Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Nursing, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Canadian Psychological Association, the American Sociological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and the American Academy of Family Physicians have acknowledged that the scientific proof supports the next conclusions: homosexuality is a pure and normal human sexuality, sexual orientation is just not a selection, gay individuals kind stable and committed relationships that are primarily equal to the relationships of heterosexuals, same-intercourse dad and mom are no much less capable than opposite-sex dad and mom to raise kids, no civilization or viable social order depends on restricting marriage to heterosexuals, and the children of same-intercourse couples fare simply as effectively or even better than the children of reverse-sex couples.