During Friday’s CBS Mornings Plus, hosts Tony Dokoupil and Adriana Diaz invited Kevin Jennings, CEO of the activist group Lambda Legal, to stoke fears that Obergefell v. Hodges might be in jeopardy. The segment unfolded as a slow‑burn panic session as the trio lamented over how anti-LGBTQ sentiment has supposedly grown since the Obergefell ruling was delivered by the Supreme Court ten years ago.
The Obergefell decision recognized same-sex marriage as equal to heterosexual marriages, with equal rights and privileges. Despite the fact that support of gay marriage was mostly bipartisan in the U.S., CBS seems to be obsessed with pushing the fear-saturated narrative that the ruling would possibly be overturned soon, comparing it to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Jennings warned that anti‑LGBTQ sentiment in America was rising, and that Obergefell could be overturned, and offered no acknowledgement of the obvious financial upside to his panic‑mongering. After all, when LGBTQ advocacy groups raise alarm, donors open their wallets.
Sure enough, a quick Google search for “Lambda Legal” pulls up a donation page at the very top spewing similar fear-saturated rhetoric urging visitors to donate.
“As the supreme court revisits some issues that many legal minds thought were settled, like Roe v. Wade, which was overturned back in 2022, there is concern among some that same sex marriage could be on the supreme court docket next,” Dokoupil suggested. “There are more than 800,000 married same sex couples living in the U.S. right now, that's according to the Williams Institute.”
Ironically, the night before on CBS’s Evening News Plus, the network aired a completely contradictory take. Jessica Levinson, the network’s legal contributor, joined Maurice DuBois and dismissed the narrative when asked the same question. She reminded viewers that Obergefell rested on the Equal Protection Clauses, unlike Roe, which was strictly tied to unenumerated liberty under Due Process. Levinson put it succinctly:
I think the court doesn't want to go there. There isn't the interest in overturning this particular precedent … Even if you start saying we’re not going to recognize any unenumerated right in the Constitution, I still think you have that equal protection leg of the Obergefell decision that’s standing.
In other words, Dobbs didn’t automatically set the stage for Obergefell’s demise.
But apparently, CBS forgot to check their notes from the night before. Instead, the network marched ahead with a fear‑fueled segment complete with its preferred guest, his preferred talking points, and a fundraising motivation lurking just off camera.
This wasn’t robust journalism. This was a carefully constructed dramatization primed for outrage and fundraising. If mainstream anchors truly believe Obergefell was doomed, why didn’t they lead with the sober legal analysis from Levinson instead of a fear‑driven line of questioning?
This wasn’t news. It’s narrative construction—packaged for maximum give‑spill. And the worst part? They've conveniently contradicted their own network’s informed legal stance. Maybe CBS should take its own advice: pause, reflect, do some actual fact‑checking before trying to lecture America about what’s supposedly on the chopping block.
The entire transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read.
CBS Evening News Plus
06/26/25
7:16:58 p.m. [TEASE]
10 seconds
MAURICE DUBOIS: The Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide 10 years ago today, but some states are looking to overturn that ruling. We’ll discuss that next in tonight’s interview.
(....)
7:20:24 p.m.
4 minutes and 6 seconds
DUBOIS: Today marks 10 years since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision recognizing same-sex marriage. It’s estimated there are more than 800,000 married same-sex couples in the U.S. That is more than double the number before the ruling in the case back in 2015. For tonight’s interview, we are joined by CBS’ Legal Contributor and Loyola Law School Professor, Jessica Levinson. Jessica, good to see you. So remind us, if you can, here, what the Obergefell case was all about and how the Supreme Court rules?
JESSICA LEVINSON: So Obergefell, exactly as you said, was about same-sex marriage. And the court essentially made two big conclusions. One is that the right to marry is a fundamental right. And this is something that the court had said or at least alluded to for decades. Think all the way back to Loving v. Virginia. And two, that you can’t take that right away from people just because they want to marry a partner of the same sex. So, it was really based on two parts of the 14th Amendment, both the Due Process Clause, saying it’s a fundamental right, and the Equal Protection Clause, saying you can’t discriminate against people based on whether or not they’re gay or want to marry a partner of their choosing of the same sex.
DUBOIS: So, it didn’t make a ruling on protections against discrimination for gay people. Do we have that right? And then how is that playing out before the court right now?
LEVINSON: Great question. So, the court’s opinion was really about marriage, no more and no less. And there was a kind of macabre joke right after the Obergefell decision. Well, people can get married on Sunday but fired on Monday. Now, I think that’s no longer the case based on how we read the federal employment discrimination statute. But again, Obergefell was just about marriage and so, there certainly has been a lot of activity since then where we look at can people be protected from employment discrimination, for instance, based on gender identity, based on LGBTQ status in general. There was another Supreme Court decision, the Bostock decision, where the court interpreted Title VII and said preventing discrimination on the basis of sex means preventing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. But that wasn’t part of that big landmark Obergefell decision.
DUBOIS: So, when people hear about this case, they think of Roe v. Wade. That’s one of the first things that comes to mind. If the court was willing to overturn such a strong president as Roe v. Wade, what about this one? Is this case -- is this protection vulnerable?
LEVINSON: I’m so glad you asked that because we still talk about this. I still have my students ask about this. And I think the answer is, in my view, no, for a couple of reasons. One, I think the court doesn’t want to go there. There isn’t the interest in overturning this particular precedent. But two, as we talked about in the beginning, Obergefell is based on two parts of the 14th Amendment. One is the Due Process Clause, and the other is the Equal Protection Clause. When you look at Roe v. Wade and the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, that’s all about the Due Process Clause. So, even if you start saying we’re not going to recognize any unenumerated right in the Constitution, I still think you have that equal protection leg of the Obergefell decision that’s standing.
DUBOIS: And real briefly here, what about states, state lawmakers, what are they doing to try to get the court to reconsider the situation?
LEVINSON: Some are passing resolutions, hoping to push the issue, hoping that now because the court is a six to three conservative court, a more conservative court than the court that made the Obergefell decision, that the court might take a case. I mean, resolutions are not legally binding. I will just say again, I don’t think the court is likely to revisit the Obergefell decision anytime soon, and states cannot contravene that decision. That’s a decision based on federal constitutional law, and they can’t go against that.
DUBOIS: Okay. Jessica Levinson, thank you so much for the insight tonight.(...)
CBS Mornings Plus
June 27, 2025
9:20:47 AM EST
[ON SCREEN: LGBTQ COMMUNITY FACING LEGAL CHALLENGES]
TONY DOKOUPIL: As the Supreme Court revisits some issues that many legal minds thought were settled, like Roe v. Wade, which was overturned back in 2022, there is concern among some that same-sex marriage could be on the Supreme Court docket next. There are more than 800,000 married same sex couples living in the U.S. right now, that's according to the Williams Institute. However, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, two Supreme Court Justices who dissented on the original opinion known as Obergefell v. Hodges, they have been vocal about wanting to reinterpret and overturn it. Here's where the public stands on the question. A Gallup survey from this past may found that same sex marriage still has the support of the majority of Americans. It's been hovering right around 70 percent. But if you drill down at the Republican opinion on this matter, support for same-sex marriage has fallen to 41 percent, a 14 point drop in just the last three years.
And by the way, this has been rolled into a broader conversation, a broader work of advocacy, the LGBTQ+ community, and that community is facing multiple legal challenges locally and federally. In the past three years, for example, at least 220 bills that Republicans say are about protecting people and Democrats are about restricting the rights of the LGBTQ community, they've become law across 27 states. You see those states on your screen. That count there is according to Lambda Legal, it's an organization that served as co-counsel in the famous Obergefell v. Hodges case we just mentioned.
Here to help us understand this recent dip and the concerns around a rollback of rights in the LGBTQ community, is the CEO of Lambda Legal, Kevin Jennings. Kevin, it's really great to have you here.
KEVIN JENNINGS: Thank you, good morning.
DOKOUPIL: Because, you know, you've been involved in advocacy, first, around same-sex marriage for a long, long time, it's broadened out from there. So, I think you're in a unique position to observe the rise in public support– and we can get into the legal part too– the rise in public support, and then a theory as to why it's fallen more recently. What – What's your take on it?
JENNINGS: Well, what seems to be happening to same sex marriage is, while it's still overwhelmingly supported by Americans, it's getting caught in the polarization that's happening around the country on many, many issues. And as you noted, it's mainly support among Republicans that have dropped. This was once– had strong bipartisan support across party lines. But as our country is getting more and more polarized, it seems like same-sex marriage is getting sucked into that.
ADRIANA DIAZ: And do you think people should be worried that same sex marriage could be overturned?
JENNINGS: I think there's a very distinct possibility that Obergefell could be overturned. As you noted, there are already two judges that say they want to do it, you only need three more votes. And there are 32 states that still have bans on same sex marriage on the books. So if Obergefell –
DIAZ: Really?
JENNINGS: – was overturned, you would be unable to get married in most states in America.