Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
Page Number: 71.0

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

3 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

ment is supposed to work.2 

The  Constitution  places  some  constraints  on  self-rule—
constraints  adopted  by  the  People  themselves  when  they 
ratified the Constitution and its Amendments.  Forbidden 
are laws “impairing the Obligation of Contracts,”3  denying 
“Full  Faith  and  Credit”  to  the  “public  Acts”  of  other 
States,4 prohibiting the free exercise of religion,5 abridging 
the  freedom  of  speech,6  infringing  the  right  to  keep  and 
bear  arms,7  authorizing  unreasonable  searches  and  sei-
zures,8  and  so  forth.    Aside  from  these  limitations,  those 
powers  “reserved  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the
people”9  can  be  exercised  as  the  States  or  the  People  de-
sire.  These cases ask us to decide whether the Fourteenth 
Amendment contains a limitation that requires the States
to  license  and  recognize  marriages  between  two  people  of 
the same sex.  Does it remove that issue from the political 
process?

Of course not.  It would be surprising to find a prescrip-
tion regarding marriage in the Federal Constitution since, 
as  the  author  of  today’s  opinion  reminded  us  only  two
years  ago  (in  an  opinion  joined  by  the  same  Justices  who 
join him today): 

“[R]egulation of domestic relations is an area that has
long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of 
the States.”10 

—————— 

2 Accord,  Schuette  v.  BAMN,  572  U. S.  ___,  ___–___  (2014)  (plurality 

opinion) (slip op., at 15–17). 
3 U. S. Const., Art. I, §10. 
4 Art. IV, §1. 
5 Amdt. 1. 
6 Ibid. 
7 Amdt. 2. 
8 Amdt. 4. 
9 Amdt. 10. 
10 United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 16)

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted).