Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
Page Number: 75

Cite as:  576 U. S. ____ (2015) 

7 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

every  State  violated  the  Constitution  for  all  of  the  135 
years  between  the  Fourteenth  Amendment’s  ratification
and  Massachusetts’  permitting  of  same-sex  marriages  in
2003.20   They  have  discovered  in  the  Fourteenth  Amend-
ment  a  “fundamental  right”  overlooked  by  every  person
alive  at  the  time  of  ratification,  and  almost  everyone  else
in  the  time  since.  They  see  what  lesser  legal  minds—
minds like  Thomas Cooley, John Marshall Harlan, Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  Jr.,  Learned  Hand,  Louis  Brandeis, 
William  Howard  Taft,  Benjamin  Cardozo,  Hugo  Black, 
Felix  Frankfurter,  Robert  Jackson,  and  Henry  Friendly—
could  not.  They  are  certain  that  the  People  ratified  the
Fourteenth  Amendment  to  bestow  on  them  the  power  to
remove  questions  from  the  democratic  process  when  that
is called for by their “reasoned judgment.”  These Justices 
know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is 
contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as 
government itself, and accepted by every nation in history 
until  15  years  ago,21  cannot  possibly  be  supported  by 
anything  other  than  ignorance  or  bigotry.  And  they  are
willing  to  say  that  any  citizen  who  does  not  agree  with 
that,  who  adheres  to  what  was,  until  15  years  ago,  the 
unanimous  judgment  of  all  generations  and  all  societies,
stands against the Constitution.

The  opinion  is  couched  in  a  style  that  is  as  pretentious
as its content is egotistic.  It is one thing for separate con-
curring  or  dissenting  opinions  to  contain  extravagances, 
even  silly  extravagances,  of  thought  and  expression;  it  is 
something  else  for  the  official  opinion  of  the  Court  to  do 
so.22  Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often 

—————— 

20 Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 440 Mass. 309, 798 N. E. 

2d 941 (2003). 

21 Windsor, 570 U. S., at ___ (ALITO, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 7). 
22 If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opin-
ion  for  the  Court  that  began:  “The  Constitution  promises  liberty  to  all
within  its  reach,  a  liberty  that  includes  certain  specific  rights  that