Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/16-992_868c.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

3 

Per Curiam 

Arkansas  Supreme  Court  reversed  that  judgment,  con-
cluding  that  the  statute  “pass[es]  constitutional  muster.”
2016 Ark. 437, 505 S. W. 3d 169, 177.  In that court’s view, 
“the  statute  centers  on  the  relationship  of  the  biological 
mother  and  the  biological  father  to  the  child,  not  on  the
marital relationship of husband and wife,” and so it “does 
not  run  afoul  of  Obergefell.”  Id.,  at  178.  Two  justices
dissented from that view, maintaining that under Oberge-
fell “a same-sex married couple is entitled to a birth certif-
icate  on  the  same  basis  as  an  opposite-sex  married 
couple.”  505  S. W. 3d,  at  184  (Brill,  C. J.,  concurring  in 
part and dissenting in part); accord, id., at 190 (Danielson, 
J., dissenting).

The  Arkansas  Supreme  Court’s  decision,  we  conclude, 
denied  married  same-sex  couples  access  to  the  “constella-
tion of benefits that the Stat[e] ha[s] linked to marriage.” 
Obergefell,  576  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  17).   As  already
explained,  when  a  married  woman  in  Arkansas  conceives
a  child  by  means  of  artificial  insemination,  the  State 
will—indeed,  must—list  the  name  of  her  male  spouse  on 
the child’s birth certificate.  See §20–18–401(f )(1); see also 
§9–10–201; supra, at 2.  And yet state law, as interpreted
by the court below, allows Arkansas officials in those very 
same  circumstances  to  omit  a  married  woman’s  female 
spouse from her child’s birth certificate.  See 505 S. W. 3d, 
at  177–178.  As  a  result,  same-sex  parents  in  Arkansas
lack the same right as opposite-sex parents to be listed on
a  child’s  birth  certificate,  a  document  often  used  for  im-
portant  transactions  like  making  medical  decisions  for  a 
child or enrolling a child in school.  See Pet. for Cert. 5–7 
(listing situations in which a parent might be required to 
present a child’s birth certificate). 

Obergefell  proscribes  such  disparate  treatment.  As  we 
explained  there,  a  State  may  not  “exclude  same-sex 
couples from civil marriage on the same terms and condi-
tions  as  opposite-sex  couples.”    576  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,