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Richard John Baker v. Gerald R. Nelson, 291 Minn. 310, 191 N.W.2d 185 (1971), is a case in which the Minnesota Supreme Court decided that construing a marriage statute to limit licenses to persons of the opposite sex "does not offend" the U.S. Constitution. Baker appealed the decision, and on October 10, 1972, the United States Supreme Court dismissed the appeal "for want of a substantial federal question". Because the case came to the U.S. Supreme Court through mandatory appellate review (not certiorari), the dismissal constituted a decision on the merits and established Baker v. Nelson as precedent, though the extent of its precedential effect had been subject to debate. In May 2013, Minnesota legalized same-sex marriage and it took effect on August 1, 2013. Subsequently, on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court explicitly overruled Baker in Obergefell v. Hodges, making same-sex marriage legal nationwide.

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