Same-sex marriage in the United States Virgin Islands

As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, which found that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, same-sex marriage in the United States Virgin Islands is legal. On June 30, the Governor Kenneth Mapp announced that the territorial government would comply with the ruling, and on July 9 he signed an executive order that requires the territory’s government to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples throughout the territory. The first marriage licenses were granted on July 21, 2015, after the first same-sex couples to apply for such licenses did so on July 13, 2015, beginning the 8-day waiting period between applying for and receiving marriage licenses.

The statutes of the Virgin Islands state that "Marriage is hereby declared to be a civil contract which may be entered into between a male and a female in accordance with the law."

In May 2014, Senator Judi Buckley introduced draft legislation in the legislature to establish same-sex marriage. Called the Civil Marriage Equality Act, it would replace the Code's "between a male and a female" with "between two persons". It included language that would allow anyone authorized to perform a wedding ceremony to decline to do so for any reason. She anticipated that it would take several months for its language to be reviewed. She expected that she and Governor John de Jongh, who she said would sign the legislation, would leave office in January 2015 before the legislation came to a vote. Supporters of the legislation include Liberty Place, an LGBT advocacy organization based on St. Croix.

In response, a group of church leaders organized One Voice Virgin Islands to oppose the legislation and plan a petition drive that aimed to collect 50,000 signatures. The group authored a letter to V.I. officials that some of its members found objectionable because it included the suggestion that some government officials were homosexual. The group's president, New Vision Ministries Pastor James Petty of St. Thomas, said: "We do not wish to be America's same-sex paradise". Pastor Lennox Zamore said that he rejected the argument that legalizing same-sex marriage would benefit the local economy: "We don't want to balance our books by bringing the sex industry – whether it is same sex or not – to the Virgin Islands",

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