Baker v. Nelson
| Baker v. Nelson | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
| Full case name | Richard John Baker et al., Appellants, v. Gerald Nelson, Clerk of Hennepin County District Court, Respondent |
| Decided | October 15, 1971 |
| Citation(s) | 291 Minn. 310, 191 N.W.2d 185 (1971) |
| Case history | |
| Prior action(s) | Plaintiff's claim dismissed |
| Holding | |
| The denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples does not violate provisions of the United States Constitution | |
| Court membership | |
| Chief Judge | Oscar Knutson |
| Associate Judges | Martin A. Nelson, William P. Murphy, James C. Otis, Walter F. Rogosheske, C. Donald Peterson, Fallon Kelly |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Peterson by unanimous |
| Laws applied | |
| Minn.St. c. 517, U.S. Const. amends I, VIII, IX, XIV | |
|
Overruled by
|
|
| Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) | |
Richard John Baker v. Gerald R. Nelson, 291 Minn. 310, 191 N.W.2d 185 (1971) is a case in which the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that a state law limiting marriage to persons of the opposite sex did not violate the U.S. Constitution. Baker appealed, and on October 10, 1972, the United States Supreme Court dismissed the appeal "for want of a substantial federal question." Because the case came to the U.S. Supreme Court through mandatory appellate review (not certiorari), the dismissal constituted a decision on the merits and established Baker v. Nelson as precedent, though the extent of its precedential effect had been subject to debate. On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court explicitly overruled Baker in Obergefell v. Hodges making same-sex marriage legal nationwide.
In May 2013, Minnesota legalized same-sex marriage and it took effect on August 1, 2013.
On May 18, 1970, two University of Minnesota gay student activists, Richard Baker and James Michael McConnell, applied for a marriage license in Minneapolis. The clerk of the Hennepin County District Court, Gerald Nelson, denied the request on the sole ground that the two were of the same sex. The couple filed suit in district court to force Nelson to issue the license.
The couple first contended that Minnesota's marriage statutes contained no explicit requirement that applicants be of different sexes. If the court were to construe the statutes to require different-sex couples, however, Baker claimed such a reading would violate several provisions of the U.S. Constitution:
The trial court dismissed the couple's claims and ordered the clerk not to issue the license.
The couple appealed the district court's decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The Court heard oral argument in the case on September 21, 1971. During the oral argument, while Baker and McConnell's lawyer was presenting his case, Justice Fallon Kelly turned his chair around, thus literally turning his back on the attorney. The justices did not ask a single question during the oral argument to Baker and McConnell's lawyer or to the assistant county attorney who represented the clerk.
...
Wikipedia