Pride & Prejudice: Trump casts shadow on 10 years of gay marriage

• Decade since Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage
• At least six states call for decision to be revisited
• Couples celebrate anniversary with concerns for future

LONDON - When Zach Bolen proposed to his partner Derrick Dobson in 2017, he chose a place that meant a lot to them; the hiking trail where the couple had first met, with a view over their entire home city of Boise, Idaho.

"I drove him to the top, claiming it would be a fun last-minute adventure as we had not been there in a while. I proposed with all of our friends and family behind us to surprise him after," Bolen, 33, told Context.

Now the couple's long-awaited wedding plans are uncertain.

In January, lawmakers in Idaho passed a resolution urging the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the ruling that legalised same-sex marriage across the United States.

On June 26, the United States will mark 10 years since that landmark decision.

But with LGBTQ+ rights increasingly under fire from President Donald Trump, Bolen is not only considering getting married in another state, but leaving Idaho altogether.

"We are not going to be in a place where we are not welcomed," said Bolen, who is on the board of directors for the Boise division of LGBTQ+ advocacy group PFLAG.

"It's heartbreaking, because we love our city of Boise and Idaho so much."

Since the 2015 decision, the Supreme Court has shifted to the right, and conservative judges now hold a 6-3 majority, heightening concern for the future of marriage equality.

At least two sitting justices have indicated they want to revisit Obergefell, among other cases.

Along with Idaho, Republican lawmakers in Michigan, Montana, Oklahoma, South and North Dakota have all introduced resolutions seeking to reverse Obergefell this year.

Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee have also introduced bills to create a type of marriage only open to heterosexuals.

"What this political moment has done is really let us know that nothing is safe," Harrison Guy said by phone from Austin, Texas, where he lives with his husband Adrian Homer.

"It makes it feel more fragile than we thought originally," said Guy, who is president of a Black, gay fraternity called Delta Phi Upsilon.

'Pride and anxiety'

If Obergefell were overturned, the decision of marriage equality would fall to individual states.

More than 30 states have laws or constitutional amendments - or both - blocking same-sex marriage.

At least one in two Americans has supported marriage equality since 2012, but that approval rating has dipped 3% since 2023, a yearly survey by analytics company Gallup showed.

LGBTQ+ Americans also risk a record run of new anti-LGBTQ+ laws - covering everything from ID laws to child custody rights - being introduced this year. 

Since January, the Trump administration has also rolled back LGBTQ+ rights on multiple fronts, be it non-binary recognition or gender-affirming care for under 19-year-olds.

Trump said he was "fine" with same-sex marriage during an interview in 2016. As to his opinion now - the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Project 2025, a set of conservative policy proposals from The Heritage Foundation think tank, said same-sex marriages involved "higher levels of instability" than heterosexual relationships and had "poor behavioral, psychological, or educational outcomes" for children.

Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025 during the presidential campaign, but his administration has since implemented several policies from the 900-page wish list.

Nancy Lyons, a tech CEO based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, married her partner Laura in 2018.

The couple adopted their son Merrick, now 18, in 2006.

"I feel pride and anxiety. There hasn't been a moment in this entire journey that hasn't had some amount of anxiety in it," Lyons said of marriage equality in a video call.

"We've made so much progress and yet we live in a time when rights that we thought were settled are being debated all over again."

Future families

The number of same-sex married couples in the United States has more than doubled since 2015, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

More than half are in states with statutes or constitutional amendments prohibiting marriage equality, it said.

Married LGBTQ+ couples were also found to earn 18% more than those who hadn't married.

"Being married has improved the health and economic stability of same-sex couples and those raising kids, as it does for other married people," said Mary Bonauto, who was an attorney in the landmark 2015 Obergefell case and is now a senior director for legal rights organisation GLAD Law.

Bonauto said fears for Obergefell's survival were not "unreasonable".

"However, we are going to fight with everything we have to preserve it, and we are confident we will win," she said.

The Respect for Marriage Act, which passed in 2022, provides federal recognition to same-sex marriages, as long as they were legal in the states where they were performed.

It is intended to serve as a backstop, should Obergefell be struck down - but only protects couples who are already married.

"My concern is for the families that don't yet exist," said 35-year-old Jordan Wilson, who is director of Colage, an organisation supporting LGBTQ+ parents.

"In a lot of states, you are just not eligible to adopt if you're unmarried," said Wilson, who married his partner Cedric last year in part due to anticipation of a second Trump term.

"If you're suddenly not able to get married any more, then you might be locked out of having children."

(Reporting by Lucy Middleton; Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths.)