WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Ten years ago, marriage equality became the law of the land.

In the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruled that state bans on same-sex marriage violated the 14th Amendment.

Jeffrey Brown went to the Washington National Cathedral to see how a new symphonic piece honors the love story of plaintiff Jim Obergefell and his husband, John, and how the fight to preserve that law continues today.

It's part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: Supreme Court cases don't usually engender a piece of symphonic music, but Obergefell v. Hodges was no ordinary case.

And so the joyous and exuberant sounds of "John and Jim."

JIM OBERGEFELL, Lead Plaintiff in Obergefell V. Hodges: There's what I have realized for me is the musical embodiment of champagne bubbles.

And my late husband, John, loved champagne, so whenever I hear that section, that's really when I feel John the most.

JEFFREY BROWN: Jim is Jim Obergefell.

John was John Arthur, his longtime partner, diagnosed with ALS in 2011.

In July 2013, as John was dying, they traveled to Maryland, a state that allowed gay marriage, to be wed.

But Ohio, where they lived, banned same-sex marriages, and Jim learned he wouldn't be recognized as John's spouse upon his death.

JIM OBERGEFELL: We had to figure out where to go to do something millions of other people took for granted.

But we made it happen.

JEFFREY BROWN: Fighting that led to the court case, one that changed American life.

Since then, nearly 600,000 gay and lesbian couples have wed, and a May poll showed 68 percent of Americans support marriage equality.

"John and Jim": was written by composer Viet Cuong, originally for the Pride Bands Alliance, and first performed last summer in Ohio.

At the cathedral, the National Orchestra Institute premiered a new symphonic version.

For Cuong, here with his husband, Trevor Rudge (ph), this was a very personal project.

VIET CUONG, Composer: I think the most important thing I wanted to show in the piece was love, because love is universal, and also humanize this Supreme Court decision that people know as Obergefell v. Hodges.

JEFFREY BROWN: Humanize a Supreme Court decision.

VIET CUONG: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

It's a legal thing, but you're making it personal.

VIET CUONG: Yes, because it started with their story.

I didn't want to be apologetic about it being a love story between two men who love each other.

JEFFREY BROWN: You didn't want to be apologetic, meaning?

VIET CUONG: I didn't want to have a metaphor for the title or hide what it's about.

JEFFREY BROWN: To thread that musical needle, Cuong turned to an old wedding favorite, "Pachelbel's Canon."

VIET CUONG: When I was young, I would play the bass line of the "Pachelbel's Canon" on the piano, and I started to improvise melodies with the right hand on top of it.

And that was how I started to compose music.

And so it was around that time when I was a kid that I started to grow up, and I realized I was gay.

And I remember seeing on TV the "Pachelbel Canon" for wedding music.

And it made me sad that this music that I loved was so emblematic of something that I felt was wrong with me and something that I could never have.

Like, I could never be married in that way.

And so in this piece, I call it interpolating the music.

JEFFREY BROWN: Interpolating?

VIET CUONG: Yes, kind of like rewriting it.

In a way, I felt like I was kind of reframing that music and kind of reclaiming it.

JEFFREY BROWN: Jim Obergefell says he cries no matter how many times he hears the work.

And how does he feel today, thinking back to John and the court case?

JIM OBERGEFELL: Surreal is the best word I can come up with.

It still honestly surprises me that I was part of this, that our marriage inside a medical jet on an airport tarmac became part of this landmark civil rights case.

It still doesn't feel possible.

In fact, I have to remind myself when I see Obergefell referenced in a news story or I hear someone say Obergefell, I really have to remind myself that they're talking about me.

JEFFREY BROWN: He also knows firsthand how much that history is meant to others.

JIM OBERGEFELL: I was in Cincinnati and at an event on the steps of the courthouse in Cincinnati.

And before the event began, a man came up to me and shook my hand and thanked me.

And as he started to cry, he said: "Thank you, Jim.

Because of you, I know my son can marry whomever it is that he loves."

I had a young woman tell me that marriage equality, this decision, a lawsuit, saved her life.

She was planning to commit suicide because, as a closeted queer kid, she did not see a future for herself.

JEFFREY BROWN: Even amid the 10-year anniversary celebrations, Obergefell sees new threats to gay marriage amid calls for the Supreme Court to overturn the historic decision, as it did with Roe v. Wade.

JIM OBERGEFELL: I take those threats very seriously and I start with the Supreme Court.

We have two sitting Supreme Court justices who have made it clear that they want to overturn Obergefell.

They personally don't like it.

And I am very worried because we have all of these state legislatures passing resolutions calling on the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell.

We have the Southern Baptist Conference calling for a ban on marriage equality.

So it makes me angry and it upsets me, because I just don't understand why.

VIET CUONG: In this piece, "John and Jim," I just wanted to humanize something that a lot of people just think of as a court case.

JEFFREY BROWN: For his part composer, Viet Cuong said reflecting through music the love of two people and the legal victory it led to has been a privilege.

VIET CUONG: It's really, really meaningful and something I never imagined when I was 11 playing the 'Pachelbel Canon' on the piano that one day I could be out as a gay man writing a piece called "John and Jim" that's actually celebrating marriage equality.

And to have it performed in the cathedral in Washington, D.C., and to have my husband sitting next to me, it's unreal.

JEFFREY BROWN: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Jeffrey Brown at the Washington National Cathedral.