Bench & Bar May/June 2025

LEFT: A full audience listens to “ Obergefell v. Hodges 10 Years Later” on the Northern Ken tucky University campus. BELOW: Lead plaintiff counsel Al Gerhardstein speaks during a dinner Chase hosted for sym posium presenters and principals in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges , more than 10 years before.

in looking at the future of the Obergefell decision. Additionally, because many of the tangential challenges to providing services to same sex couples were rooted in religious objections, it also seemed important to explore those topics a bit and to discuss the relationship between religious objections and public accommodation laws.” Pursuing some of those themes, Chase Dean and Professor Judith Daar, who is a nation ally recognized authority on legal issues of assisted reproductive technologies, spoke on the panel, “Building Families – Repro ductive Health and Family Rights,” and Professor Jennifer Kinsley, who has focused much of her legal writing and previous pro bono representation on First Amendment issues, was part of the panel, “Free Speech and Equal Protection – Where the First and Fourteen Amendments Meet.”

set the stage for consideration of numer ous other issues. Other panels explored the impacts on reproductive and family rights; the intersection of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, involving freedom of expression and the application of the right to the states; and the future of civil rights. “Deeply connected to the marriage topic are topics related to family formation and protections for non-traditional families,” Professor Harrison says. “Thus, it was important to have discussions related to reproduction, surrogacy, adoption and other means by which families are created. Also, because some language in the Dobbs v. Jackson abortion opinions called into question the legal foundation on which the Obergefell decision rests, namely substantive due process, it was critical to discuss that

The evening before the symposium, Chase hosted a dinner for numerous participants in the Obergefell case and symposium pan elists who would be talking about it and its related issues. “The reunion aspect of the symposium tran scended just Jim Obergefell, Rick Hodges, and Al Gerhardstein. Present at the dinner and the symposium were a number of the original Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals plaintiffs and counsel, which, for many, was the first time they had seen one another since 2015,” Professor Harrison says. FOR SYMPOSIUM ATTENDEES, THE DAY WAS A LOT TO THINK ABOUT.

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