Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
Page Number: 58.0

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

19 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

3 
Perhaps  recognizing  how  little  support  it  can  derive
from precedent, the majority goes out of its way to jettison 
the  “careful”  approach  to  implied  fundamental  rights
taken  by  this  Court  in  Glucksberg.  Ante,  at  18  (quoting 
521 U. S., at 721).  It is revealing that the majority’s posi-
tion  requires  it  to  effectively  overrule  Glucksberg,  the 
leading modern case setting the bounds of substantive due 
process.  At least this part of the majority opinion has the 
virtue of candor.  Nobody could rightly accuse the majority
of taking a careful approach. 

Ultimately,  only  one  precedent  offers  any  support  for 
the  majority’s  methodology:  Lochner  v.  New  York,  198 
U. S.  45.  The  majority  opens  its  opinion  by  announcing 
petitioners’  right  to  “define  and  express  their  identity.” 
Ante, at 1–2.  The majority later explains that “the right to
personal  choice  regarding  marriage  is  inherent  in  the
concept  of  individual  autonomy.”    Ante,  at  12.    This  free-
wheeling notion of individual autonomy echoes nothing so
much as “the general right of an individual to be free in his 
person and in his power to contract in relation to his own 
labor.”  Lochner, 198 U. S., at 58 (emphasis added).

To  be  fair,  the  majority  does  not  suggest  that  its  indi-
vidual  autonomy  right  is  entirely  unconstrained.  The 
constraints it sets are precisely those that accord with its 
own  “reasoned  judgment,”  informed  by  its  “new  insight”
into  the  “nature  of  injustice,”  which  was  invisible  to  all
who  came  before  but  has  become  clear  “as  we  learn  [the] 
meaning”  of  liberty.  Ante,  at  10,  11.    The  truth  is  that 
today’s decision rests on nothing more than the majority’s
own conviction that same-sex couples should be allowed to 
marry because they want to, and that “it would disparage 
their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them
this  right.”  Ante,  at  19.  Whatever  force  that  belief  may 
have as a matter of moral philosophy, it has no more basis 
in the Constitution than did the naked policy preferences