Obergefell v. Hodges

     If you’d asked me a week ago to tell you what the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges had been about, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.  I wasn’t ignorant of the Court’s same-sex marriage ruling, but I was ignorant of the circumstances surrounding the case and the far-reaching consequences of the Court over-reaching its judicial bounds. 

     I really thought the whole situation was about whether homosexual unions were good, right and correct or not.  How have I lived 50 years and never read a Supreme Court case summary or dissents?  I think I imagined them full of legal jargon and reading something like a loan contract or a warantee, full of legal jargon and incomprehensible to the typical person.  Obergefell v. Hodges was a pleasant surprise.

     Not only was case summary in plain English, the rebuttals were witty and pointed.  I somehow imagined our Supreme Court something like the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  A diverse group of wise men who counseled with each other and debated congenially until they came to a consensus.  I know Supreme Court is a majority vote, but somehow that didn’t change my idealized vision of them.  Reading the dissents of Obergefell v. Hodges woke me up.

     Justice Roberts said, in dissent, “Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us.  Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be.”  In Obergefell v. Hodges, the judicial majority redefined marriage.  They took an establishment that they admitted had, throughout all human history, been defined as between a man and a woman and using “[our] better informed understanding” Ante, at 19, redefined marriage so as not to deprive same-sex couples of what they interpreted to be Fourteenth Amendment rights.  They did not rule on law as was, but “enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law.” (Obergefell v. Hodges, Justice C. J. Roberts, dissenting p.2)

     The Judicial Majority used a changing and “evolving” definition of liberty and supported their view with examples that had affected marriage and individual rights but had never touched the definition of what a marriage was.  None of the “rights” being denied to same-sex couples before the Supreme Court ruling were affecting the liberty of homosexual individual or couples.  In fact, they had the right to live together, create spiritual unions, raise children, purchase property, etc.  They had the liberty to live as they pleased, without fear of legal consequence. 

     What the proponents of same-sex marriage wanted, was not to have the liberty to be a couple or family, but to be entitled to government benefits.  In changing the definition of marriage by court order, the Supreme Court gave a the vocal minority a small victory at the expense of democracy.