Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
Page Number: 55.0

16 

OBERGEFELL v. HODGES 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

do not hold, of course, that anyone who wants to get mar-
ried  has  a  constitutional  right  to  do  so.    They  instead
require  a  State  to  justify  barriers  to  marriage  as  that
institution  has  always  been  understood.    In  Loving,  the 
Court  held  that  racial  restrictions  on  the  right  to  marry
lacked a compelling justification.  In Zablocki, restrictions 
based  on  child  support  debts  did  not  suffice.    In  Turner, 
restrictions  based  on  status  as  a  prisoner  were  deemed 
impermissible.

None  of  the  laws  at  issue  in  those  cases  purported  to
change  the  core  definition  of  marriage  as  the  union  of  a 
man and a  woman.  The laws challenged in Zablocki and 
Turner did not define marriage as “the union of a man and 
a  woman,  where  neither  party  owes  child  support  or  is  in 
prison.”  Nor  did  the  interracial  marriage  ban  at  issue  in 
Loving  define  marriage  as  “the  union  of  a  man  and  a 
woman  of  the  same  race.”  See  Tragen,  Comment,  Statu-
tory  Prohibitions  Against  Interracial  Marriage,  32  Cal.
L. Rev.  269  (1944)  (“at  common  law  there  was  no  ban  on 
interracial  marriage”);  post,  at  11–12,  n. 5  (THOMAS,  J., 
dissenting).  Removing  racial  barriers  to  marriage  there-
fore  did  not  change  what  a  marriage  was  any  more  than
integrating  schools  changed  what  a  school  was.    As  the 
majority admits, the institution of “marriage” discussed in
every  one  of  these  cases  “presumed  a  relationship  involv-
ing opposite-sex partners.”  Ante, at 11. 

In  short,  the  “right  to  marry”  cases  stand  for  the  im-
portant but limited proposition that particular restrictions
on  access  to  marriage  as  traditionally  defined  violate  due 
process.  These precedents say nothing at all about a right 
to make a State change its definition of marriage, which is
the right petitioners actually seek here.  See Windsor, 570 
U. S.,  at  ___  (ALITO,  J.,  dissenting)  (slip  op.,  at  8)  (“What
Windsor and the United States seek . . . is not the protec-
tion  of  a  deeply  rooted  right  but  the  recognition  of  a  very
new  right.”).    Neither  petitioners  nor  the  majority  cites  a