20 Years After Same-Sex Marriage Was First Legalized, Queer Couples Reflect on How Their Lives Changed

To Gina Nortonsmith, the most memorable moment from her wedding day was not walking down the aisle, but rather, a conversation she shared with her two sons. “You came out as Nortonsmith. We had to earn it,” she recalls telling her children on May 17, 2004. The roots of her family had been in the making for nearly 15 years, but Heidi Norton and Gina Smith, as they were then-known, were unable to marry until the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s (SJC) 4-3 ruling in favor of same-sex marriage was officially in motion.