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Page Number: 79

2 

OBERGEFELL v. HODGES 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Constitution  to  preserve  that  understanding  of  liberty.
Yet the majority invokes our Constitution in the name of a
“liberty”  that  the  Framers  would  not  have  recognized,  to 
the detriment of the liberty they sought to protect.  Along
the way, it rejects the idea—captured in our Declaration of 
Independence—that human dignity is innate and suggests 
instead  that  it  comes  from  the  Government.    This  distor-
tion of our Constitution not only ignores the text, it inverts 
the  relationship  between  the  individual  and  the  state  in
our Republic.  I cannot agree with it. 

I 
The majority’s decision today will require States to issue
marriage  licenses  to  same-sex  couples  and  to  recognize 
same-sex marriages entered in other States largely based
on  a  constitutional  provision  guaranteeing  “due  process”
before  a  person  is  deprived  of  his  “life,  liberty,  or  prop-
erty.”  I have elsewhere explained the dangerous fiction of
treating  the  Due  Process  Clause  as  a  font  of  substantive 
rights.  McDonald  v.  Chicago,  561  U. S.  742,  811–812 
(2010)  (THOMAS,  J.,  concurring  in  part  and  concurring  in 
judgment).  It distorts the constitutional text, which guar-
antees only whatever “process” is “due” before a person is
deprived of life, liberty, and property.  U. S. Const., Amdt. 
14,  §1.  Worse,  it  invites  judges  to  do  exactly  what  the 
majority has done here—“ ‘roa[m] at large in the constitu-
tional field’ guided only by their personal views” as to the 
“ ‘fundamental  rights’ ”  protected  by  that  document. 
Planned  Parenthood  of  Southeastern  Pa.  v.  Casey,  505 
U. S. 833, 953, 965 (1992) (Rehnquist, C. J., concurring in
judgment  in  part  and  dissenting  in  part)  (quoting  Gris-
wold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 502 (1965) (Harlan, J.,
concurring in judgment)). 

By  straying  from  the  text  of  the  Constitution,  substan-
tive due process exalts judges at the expense of the People 
from whom they derive their authority.  Petitioners argue