Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
Page Number: 100

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

5 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

velopment  undoubtedly  is  both  a  cause  and  a  result  of
changes in our society’s understanding of marriage.

While,  for  many,  the  attributes  of  marriage  in  21st-
century  America  have  changed,  those  States  that  do  not 
want  to  recognize  same-sex  marriage  have  not  yet  given
up on the traditional understanding.  They worry that by 
officially  abandoning  the  older  understanding,  they  may
contribute  to  marriage’s  further  decay.    It  is  far  beyond
the  outer  reaches  of  this  Court’s  authority  to  say  that  a 
State  may  not  adhere  to  the  understanding  of  marriage 
that has long prevailed, not just in this country and others
with  similar  cultural  roots,  but  also  in  a  great  variety  of
countries and cultures all around the globe.

As I wrote in Windsor: 

“The  family  is  an  ancient  and  universal  human  in-
stitution. Family structure reflects the characteristics
of  a  civilization,  and  changes  in  family  structure  and 
in  the  popular  understanding  of  marriage  and  the
family can have profound effects.  Past changes in the
understanding of marriage—for example, the gradual
ascendance of the idea that romantic love is a prereq-
uisite  to  marriage—have  had  far-reaching  conse-
quences.  But the process by which such consequences 
come  about  is  complex,  involving  the  interaction  of
numerous factors, and tends to occur over an extended 
period of time.

“We  can  expect  something  similar  to  take  place  if 
same-sex  marriage  becomes  widely  accepted.    The 
long-term  consequences  of  this  change  are  not  now
known  and  are  unlikely  to  be  ascertainable  for  some 

—————— 

nvsr64_01.pdf  (all  Internet  materials  as  visited  June  24,  2015,  and
available  in Clerk of Court’s case file); cf.  Dept. of Health and Human
Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center 
for  Health  Statistics  (NCHS),  S.  Ventura,  Changing  Patterns  of  Non-
martial  Childbearing  in  the  United  States,  NCHS  Data  Brief,  No.  18
(May 2009), online at http://www.cdc.gov/ nchs/ data/databrief/db18.pdf.