Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
Page Number: 80

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

3 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

that by enshrining the traditional definition of marriage in
their  State  Constitutions  through  voter-approved  amend-
ments, the States have put the issue “beyond the reach of
the  normal  democratic  process.”    Brief  for  Petitioners  in 
No.  14–562,  p.  54.  But  the  result  petitioners  seek  is  far 
less  democratic.  They  ask  nine  judges  on  this  Court  to
enshrine  their  definition  of  marriage  in  the  Federal  Con-
stitution  and  thus  put  it  beyond  the  reach  of  the  normal
democratic  process  for  the  entire  Nation.    That  a  “bare 
majority”  of  this  Court,  ante,  at  25,  is  able  to  grant  this
wish, wiping out with a stroke of the keyboard the results 
of the political process in over 30 States, based on a provi-
sion  that  guarantees  only  “due  process”  is  but  further
evidence of the danger of substantive due process.1 

II 
Even  if  the  doctrine  of  substantive  due  process  were
somehow defensible—it is not—petitioners still would not 
have a claim.  To invoke the protection of the Due Process 
Clause at all—whether under a theory of “substantive” or
“procedural”  due  process—a  party  must  first  identify  a 
deprivation  of  “life,  liberty,  or  property.”    The  majority
claims these state laws deprive petitioners of “liberty,” but 
the  concept  of  “liberty”  it  conjures  up  bears  no  resem-
blance to any plausible meaning of that word as it is used 
in the Due Process Clauses. 

—————— 

1 The  majority  states  that  the  right  it  believes  is  “part  of  the  liberty 
promised  by  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  is  derived,  too,  from  that 
Amendment’s  guarantee  of  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws.”    Ante,  at 
19.  Despite  the  “synergy”  it  finds  “between  th[ese]  two  protections,” 
ante, at 20, the majority clearly uses equal protection only to shore up
its  substantive  due  process  analysis,  an  analysis  both  based  on  an
imaginary  constitutional  protection  and  revisionist  view  of  our  history 
and tradition.