Heather Turner and Liza Oakley were a married same-sex couple who had a child using assisted reproduction. Heather gave birth to the child and both parents were listed on the birth certificate. Heather and Liza raised the baby together, with Liza staying as the primary caregiver until they broke up the following year. In their divorce, Heather argued that Liza was not a parent.

In 2013, Houston mayor Annise Parker directed that same-sex spouses of city employees who were legally married in another state be afforded the same benefits as different-sex spouses of city employees. Two individuals, represented by the anti-LGBTQ group Texas Values, filed a lawsuit in Texas state court challenging the extension of benefits to same-sex spouses, arguing that it violated Texas’s prohibition on marriage for same-sex couples.

The Arkansas Department of Health’s refusal to issue birth certificates naming both parents in a same-sex marriage violated the clear ruling of the United States Supreme Court in its 2015 marriage equality decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, which requires states to treat the marriages of same-sex couples the same as other couples’ marriages for all purposes under the law. NCLR petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2017 overturned the decision of the Arkansas Supreme Court.