Getting Your Marriage Documents In Order Is a Good Idea

While legal experts said same-sex marriage is safe for now, attacks on LGBTQ+ couples could increase in the future.

So far, President Donald Trump has followed through on his promise of making attacks on transgender Americans—and by extension the wider LGBTQ+ community—a central pillar of his decision-making. In the first month, his administration has pushed and enacted anti-LGBTQ+ policies including recent directives that use dehumanizing language to describe trans servicemembers, scrubbing federal websites of any reference to trans or queer people (including for the Stonewall National Memorial), removing all information about HIV and AIDS prevention, as well as issuing the CDC to forbid words such as “LGBT” or “transgender.”

As a result, LGBTQ+ couples in Arizona have expressed worry about the future—particularly their marriages.

It’s not a baseless concern: In the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion alongside the majority’s decision that the same logic to defeat Roe should also be applied to decisions that granted rights to same-sex marriage and struck down sodomy laws, which targeted gay men.

Since then, states have tried to codify same-sex marriage into their constitutions: In the 2024 general election, Colorado made it part of its constitution, and Virginia is attempting to do the same with a bill that could be on voters’ 2026 midterm ballots.

In Arizona, though, efforts to enshrine same-sex marriage in the state constitution have failed every time—even today.