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Page Number: 70

2 

OBERGEFELL v. HODGES 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

Those  civil  consequences—and  the  public  approval  that 
conferring  the  name  of  marriage  evidences—can  perhaps 
have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the 
effects  of  many  other  controversial  laws.    So  it  is  not  of 
special  importance  to  me  what  the  law  says  about  mar-
riage.  It is  of overwhelming  importance,  however,  who  it 
is that rules me.  Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and 
the  Ruler  of  320  million  Americans  coast-to-coast,  is  a 
majority  of  the  nine  lawyers  on  the  Supreme  Court.    The 
opinion  in  these  cases  is  the  furthest  extension  in  fact—
and  the  furthest  extension  one  can  even  imagine—of  the
Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Consti-
tution  and  its  Amendments  neglect  to  mention.    This 
practice of constitutional revision by an unelected commit-
tee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extrav-
agant  praise  of  liberty,  robs  the  People  of  the  most  im-
portant  liberty  they  asserted  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  won  in  the  Revolution  of  1776:  the 
freedom to govern themselves. 

I 
Until  the  courts  put  a  stop  to  it,  public  debate  over
same-sex  marriage  displayed  American  democracy  at  its 
best.  Individuals  on  both  sides  of  the  issue  passionately, 
but  respectfully,  attempted  to  persuade  their  fellow  citi-
zens  to  accept  their  views.  Americans  considered  the 
arguments and put the question to a vote.  The electorates 
of  11  States,  either  directly  or  through  their  representa-
tives,  chose  to  expand  the  traditional  definition  of  mar-
riage.  Many more decided not to.1  Win or lose, advocates 
for both sides continued pressing their cases, secure in the 
knowledge that an electoral loss can be negated by a later 
electoral  win.  That  is  exactly  how  our  system  of  govern-

—————— 

1 Brief for Respondents in No. 14–571, p. 14.