Ten years after Obergefell v. Hodges, marriage remains out of reach for millions of disabled people. While explicit bans on interracial and same-sex marriage have fallen, disabled people navigate a sophisticated web of discrimination that operates across legal, economic, institutional, and cultural domains. Guardianship laws strip away decision-making authority, benefit programs impose devastating marriage penalties that force impossible choices between love and survival, institutional policies prevent relationship formation, and cultural narratives render disabled people invisible as potential partners. These interlocking barriers make marriage effectively unattainable for many.

This Article charts a path forward through constitutional litigation, benefit reform, guardianship transformation, and cultural change—recognizing that piecemeal fixes cannot dismantle a system built to exclude. True marriage equality demands more than legal recognition on paper—it requires dismantling the obstacles that keep constitutional rights theoretical for millions of Americans. The systematic denial of marriage choice reflects deeper societal failures to recognize disabled people’s full humanity, autonomy, and citizenship. Constitutional promises of liberty and equality must extend beyond formal recognition to encompass the material conditions necessary for their meaningful exercise, and the systematic exclusion of disabled people from marriage represents a profound failure of these constitutional commitments that demands immediate and comprehensive redress.

Child welfare systems are increasingly adopting algorithmic decision-making (ADM) tools, but there has been limited work assessing the impact of such tools on people with disabilities. We address this gap by examining the Allegheny Family Screening Tool (AFST) for disability-related bias. We obtained variables and coefficients used in the AFST from the Allegheny County Department of Human Services. We used data from the American Community Survey, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, and National Survey on Drug Use and Health to assess whether disabled parents and children would receive worse AFST scores compared to their non-disabled counterparts. Parents and children with disabilities were significantly more likely to be penalized by all elements of the AFST scoring we examined. These include socioeconomic indicators, healthcare utilization patterns, involvement with public benefits programs, and contact with the criminal legal system. Despite containing no explicit disability measures, the AFST effectively encodes disability status through proxy variables, potentially subjecting disabled parents and their children to disproportionate scrutiny and intervention. The AFST may reinforce rather than remedy historical biases against parents with disabilities, raising important questions about the role of algorithmic tools in public sector decision-making.

Studies have documented pervasive ableism faced by disabled parents within the child welfare system. However, the experiences of disabled parents facing multiple forms of oppression in this context remain understudied. Recognizing the heterogeneity of disabled parents, this study investigated intersectional oppression from the perspective of attorneys who represent disabled parents in child welfare cases. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 23 attorneys in the United States who represent disabled parents in child welfare cases. Content analysis revealed three main themes related to the experiences and outcomes of disabled parents facing intersectional oppression: systemic mechanisms of oppression, intermediate impacts, and ultimate outcomes. Drivers of intersectional oppression included system structure and institutional barriers, power dynamics, and cross-system interactions. Intermediate impacts encompassed the child welfare system’s response and parent experiences, whereas ultimate outcomes included case outcomes and long-term family impact. Addressing intersectional oppression faced by disabled parents necessitates substantive and comprehensive system restructuring, including rules, statutes, practices, and services that currently punish and marginalize affected disabled parents. Paired with structural and policy reform, intersectional training must also be required for all professionals involved with the system to erode individual-level bias.