How does what happened to Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia violate the 14th Amendment?
The Fourteenth Amendment states that every citizen of the United States are guaranteed that their rights will not be "abridged" or infringed upon without due process of the law. Key to the Fourteenth Amendment is the Equal Protection Clause which states that each citizen will be granted "equal protection of the laws". Born out of the American Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that every citizen of the United States equal protection under the law. Being afflicted with HIV/AIDS doesn't make anybody any less of a citizen. By firing Andrew Beckett for the reason that he has contracted a disease (which doesn't affect the quality of his work), Wyant-Wheeler treated Beckett as a second-class citizen compared to someone who didn't have HIV/AIDS.
How does the advent of same sex marriage speak to "due process" and "equal protection" under the 14th Amendment? Through the lens of Obergefell v. Hodges?
America is a nation that was founded on the ideal of separating church and state. With that distinction, it's clear that there is not argument within the rule of law that would support marriage as being defined exclusively as between a man and a woman. The law allows for United States citizens to marry if they are heterosexual. Why then, should it disallow homosexual citizens to marry? The Due Process Clause states that no citizen shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or property" without fair and equal treatment under the law. Therefore, to deny the equal opportunity for homosexual couples to marry as compared to heterosexual couples is a violation of both the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause. These two clauses are the grounds upon which the relatively recent Obergefell v. Hodges case was decided on in 2015. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in Obergefell v. Hodges, saying that the right to marry is a fundamental right "inherent in the liberty of the person". Thus, disallowing same sex marriage on "traditional", "family-values", or religious grounds was a violation of the United States Constitution.
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