Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy says it’s not for him to know whether his series of landmark rulings on LGBTQ+ rights will remain in place.

“We’ll see,” he told ABC News in an interview promoting his new memoir. “That’s for the next generation to decide.”

Related

Amy Coney Barrett discusses possibility of Supreme Court overturning marriage equality

Kennedy is perhaps best known for authoring the Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized marriage equality nationwide. One piece of his ruling, in particular, is often quoted:

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideal of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family.  In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.  As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death.  It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded form one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law.  The Constitution grants them that right.”

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

Kennedy also voted in the majority for Romer v. Evans, which upheld that the Equal Protection Clause does not allow states to deny gay people the same legal protections that straight people have.

And in 2003, he voted with the majority in the landmark case of Lawrence v. Texas, which ruled that a Texas law criminalizing consensual same-sex relations was unconstitutional.

But right now, it is marriage equality that is facing the biggest threat.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the same legal reasoning could also be used to overturn marriage equality. Anti-LGBTQ+ Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has also been outspoken about his hatred of the Obergefell decision, though he recently claimed the precedent set by the court’s ruling is “entitled to respect.”

As the court becomes more and more conservative, Republican-led states across the country have also passed resolutions asking the justices to overturn marriage equality.

In his interview with ABC, Kennedy emphasized a major reason he believes Obergefell should remain in place.

“Stare decisis, the rule that a precedent should be given great weight, in part, depends on reliance,” he said. “There’s been so much reliance on the marriage opinion that if it were to reverse, people who had had what they thought were decent, honorable lives all of a sudden would be adrift again.”

Reliance is a legal term defined as “the dependence by one person on another person’s or entity’s statements or actions, particularly where the person acts upon such dependence.” That is, people make life decisions based on what the law is, so ruling that a law means something different has to take that “reliance” into account. Such reliance must be considered “reasonable.”

Kennedy, who is Catholic, explained that his views on gay people evolved as he learned about the prevalence of children who had been adopted by queer couples.

“There were thousands of children that were adopted by gay parents,” he said, “and for them to know that their parents were not recognized by society, but the law, as real parents, as something that was marginally illegal, could create a profound sadness for thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of children.”

He added that he “began to learn about the hurt and the anguish and the desire these people had to live a wonderful life and contribute to our country.”

The fact that “the law protects us all,” he explained, “seemed to be a good lesson to teach.”

In the Obergefell opinion, Kennedy outlined the costs of not allowing couples with children to legally marry: “Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant material costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life.”

He wrote that the fact that so many children are already being raised in queer households “provides powerful confirmation from the law itself that gays and lesbians can create loving, supportive families.”

Kennedy has spoken about the significance of reliance before. In October 2025, he told CNN about hundreds of thousands of adopted children that motivated his opinion in the Obergefell case.

These families, he said, now have a “substantial reliance” on the decision, which has granted them stability. If the decision were overturned, Kennedy said it “would be a tremendous reliance problem.”

During his conversation with ABC, he also emphasized his belief in equal rights for trans people.

“I don’t think we can have a peaceful world unless all sides agree that whatever we think of your ambitions, or your beliefs, we will treat you with dignity, and we will discuss it in a thoughtful, rational, productive, decent way, respecting your dignity,” he said. “You believe in X. We believe in Y. We can recognize that both of those have some merit to them.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.