[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Mail]  [Sign-in]  [Setup]  [Help]  [Register] 

Utopian Visionaries Who Won’t Leave People Alone

No - no - no Ain'T going To get away with iT

Pete Buttplug's Butt Plugger Trying to Turn Kids into Faggots

Mark Levin: I'm sick and tired of these attacks

Questioning the Big Bang

James Webb Data Contradicts the Big Bang

Pssst! Don't tell the creationists, but scientists don't have a clue how life began

A fine romance: how humans and chimps just couldn't let go

Early humans had sex with chimps

O’Keefe dons bulletproof vest to extract undercover journalist from NGO camp.

Biblical Contradictions (Alleged)

Catholic Church Praising Lucifer

Raising the Knife

One Of The HARDEST Videos I Had To Make..

Houthi rebels' attack severely damages a Belize-flagged ship in key strait leading to the Red Sea (British Ship)

Chinese Illegal Alien. I'm here for the moneuy

Red Tides Plague Gulf Beaches

Tucker Carlson calls out Nikki Haley, Ben Shapiro, and every other person calling for war:

{Are there 7 Deadly Sins?} I’ve heard people refer to the “7 Deadly Sins,” but I haven’t been able to find that sort of list in Scripture.

Abomination of Desolation | THEORY, BIBLE STUDY

Bible Help

Libertysflame Database Updated

Crush EVERYONE with the Alien Gambit!

Vladimir Putin tells Tucker Carlson US should stop arming Ukraine to end war

Putin hints Moscow and Washington in back-channel talks in revealing Tucker Carlson interview

Trump accuses Fulton County DA Fani Willis of lying in court response to Roman's motion

Mandatory anti-white racism at Disney.

Iceland Volcano Erupts For Third Time In 2 Months, State Of Emergency Declared

Tucker Carlson Interview with Vladamir Putin

How will Ar Mageddon / WW III End?

What on EARTH is going on in Acts 16:11? New Discovery!

2023 Hottest in over 120 Million Years

2024 and beyond in prophecy

Questions

This Speech Just Broke the Internet

This AMAZING Math Formula Will Teach You About God!

The GOSPEL of the ALIENS | Fallen Angels | Giants | Anunnaki

The IMAGE of the BEAST Revealed (REV 13) - WARNING: Not for Everyone

WEF Calls for AI to Replace Voters: ‘Why Do We Need Elections?’

The OCCULT Burger king EXPOSED

PANERA BREAD Antichrist message EXPOSED

The OCCULT Cheesecake Factory EXPOSED

Satanist And Witches Encounter The Cross

History and Beliefs of the Waldensians

Rome’s Persecution of the Bible

Evolutionists, You’ve Been Caught Lying About Fossils

Raw Streets of NYC Migrant Crisis that they don't show on Tv

Meet DarkBERT - AI Model Trained On DARK WEB

[NEW!] Jaw-dropping 666 Discovery Utterly Proves the King James Bible is God's Preserved Word

ALERT!!! THE MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION WILL SOON BE POSTED HERE


Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

U.S. Constitution
See other U.S. Constitution Articles

Title: OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO
Source: Supreme Court.gov
URL Source: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
Published: Jun 26, 2015
Author: Antonin Scalia
Post Date: 2015-06-29 11:40:35 by redleghunter
Keywords: None
Views: 1369
Comments: 2

Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee define marriage as a unionbetween one man and one woman. The petitioners, 14 same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners are deceased, filed suits in Federal District Courts in their home States, claiming that respondent state officials violate the Fourteenth Amendment by denying them the right to marry or to have marriages lawfully performedin another State given full recognition. Each District Court ruled in petitioners’ favor, but the Sixth Circuit consolidated the cases and reversed. Held: The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriagebetween two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State. Pp. 3–28. (a) Before turning to the governing principles and precedents, it isappropriate to note the history of the subject now before the Court. Pp. 3–10. (1) The history of marriage as a union between two persons ofthe opposite sex marks the beginning of these cases. To the respondents, it would demean a timeless institution if marriage were extended to same-sex couples. But the petitioners, far from seeking to devalue marriage, seek it for themselves because of their respect—andneed—for its privileges and responsibilities, as illustrated by the pe——————

titioners’ own experiences. Pp. 3–6. (2) The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change. Changes, such as the decline of arranged marriages and the abandonment of the law of coverture, have worked deep transformations in the structure of marriage, affecting aspects of marriage once viewed as essential. These new insights have strengthened, not weakened, the institution. Changed understandings of marriage are characteristic of a Nation where new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations. This dynamic can be seen in the Nation’s experience with gay and lesbian rights. Well into the 20th century, many States condemned same-sex intimacy as immoral, and homosexuality was treated as anillness. Later in the century, cultural and political developments allowed same-sex couples to lead more open and public lives. Extensive public and private dialogue followed, along with shifts in public attitudes. Questions about the legal treatment of gays and lesbians soonreached the courts, where they could be discussed in the formal discourse of the law. In 2003, this Court overruled its 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186, which upheld a Georgia law thatcriminalized certain homosexual acts, concluding laws making same-sex intimacy a crime “demea[n] the lives of homosexual persons.” Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U. S. 558, 575. In 2012, the federal Defense of Marriage Act was also struck down. United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S. ___. Numerous same-sex marriage cases reaching the federalcourts and state supreme courts have added to the dialogue. Pp. 6– 10.

Click for Full Text!


Poster Comment:

Nolu Chan did great work posting excerpts of the decision and opinions. For the full version of the Scalia remarks see above. Only posted the opening paragraphs.

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: redleghunter (#0)

For the full version of the Scalia remarks see above. Only posted the opening paragraphs.

Let me help for people who have trubs with pdf files.

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

[1]

SCALIA, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Nos. 14-556, 14-562, 14-571 and 14-574

14-556
JAMES OBERGEFELL, ET AL., PETITIONERS
v.
RICHARD HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL.;

14-562
VALERIA TANCO, ET AL., PETITIONERS
v.
BILL HASLAM, GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE, ET AL.;

14-571
APRIL DEBOER, ET AL., PETITIONERS
v.
RICK SNYDER, GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN, ET AL.; AND

14-574
GREGORY BOURKE, ET AL., PETITIONERS
v.
STEVE BESHEAR, GOVERNOR OF KENTUCKY

ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

[June 26, 2015]

Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Thomas joins, dissenting.

I join THE CHIEF Justice's opinion in full. I write sepa­rately to call attention to this Court's threat to American democracy.

The substance of today's decree is not of immense per­sonal importance to me. The law can recognize as mar­riage whatever sexual attachments and living arrange­ments it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance.

- - - - -

[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 mar­riage. 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 Consti­tution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected commit­tee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extrav­agant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most im­portant 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 citi­zens 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 representa­tives, chose to expand the traditional definition of mar­riage. 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.

- - - - -

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 seizures,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 de­sire. 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 prescrip­tion 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.

9Amdt. 10.

10 United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S._,_(2013) (slip op., at 16) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

- - - - -

[4]

OBERGEFELL v. HODGES

SCALIA, J., dissenting

"[T]he Federal Government, through our history, has deferred to state-law policy decisions with respect to domestic relations."11

But we need not speculate. When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, every State limited marriage to one man and one woman, and no one doubted the constitutionality of doing so. That resolves these cases. When it comes to determining the meaning of a vague constitutional provision—such as "due process of law" or "equal protection of the laws"—it is unquestionable that the People who ratified that provision did not under­stand it to prohibit a practice that remained both univer­sal and uncontroversial in the years after ratification.12 We have no basis for striking down a practice that is not expressly prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment's text, and that bears the endorsement of a long tradition of open, widespread, and unchallenged use dating back to the Amendment's ratification. Since there is no doubt what­ever that the People never decided to prohibit the limita­tion of marriage to opposite-sex couples, the public debate over same-sex marriage must be allowed to continue.

But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law. Buried beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those rights that the Judiciary, in its "reasoned judgment," thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect.13 That is so because "[t]he generations that wrote and rati­fied the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its

__________

11 Id., at_(slip op., at 17).

12 See Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U. S._, - (2014) (slip op., at 7-8).

13 Ante, at 10.

- - - - -

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

[5]

SCALIA, J., dissenting

dimensions . . . . "14 One would think that sentence would continue: ". . . and therefore they provided for a means by which the People could amend the Constitution," or per­haps ". . . and therefore they left the creation of additional liberties, such as the freedom to marry someone of the same sex, to the People, through the never-ending process of legislation." But no. What logically follows, in the majority's judge-empowering estimation, is: "and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its mean-ing."15 The "we," needless to say, is the nine of us. "History and tradition guide and discipline [our] inquiry but do not set its outer boundaries."16 Thus, rather than focusing on the People's understanding of "liberty"—at the time of ratification or even today—the majority focuses on four "principles and traditions" that, in the majority's view, prohibit States from defining marriage as an institution consisting of one man and one woman.17

This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Except as limited by a constitutional prohibition agreed to by the People, the States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices' "reasoned judg­ment." A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy. Judges are selected precisely for their skill as lawyers; whether they reflect the policy views of a particular con­stituency is not (or should not be) relevant. Not surpris­ingly then, the Federal Judiciary is hardly a cross-section

__________

14 Ante, at 11.

15 Ibid.

16 Ante, at 10-11.

17 Ante, at 12-18.

- - - - -

6

OBERGEFELL v. HODGES

SCALIA, J., dissenting

of America. Take, for example, this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers18 who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single South-westerner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count). Not a single evangelical Christian (a group that comprises about one quarter of Americans19), or even a Protestant of any denomination. The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today's social upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges, answering the legal question whether the American people had ever ratified a constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe the traditional definition of marriage. But of course the Justices in today's majority are not voting on that basis; they say they are not. And to allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.

II

But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today's judicial Putsch. The five Justices who compose today's majority are entirely comfortable concluding that

__________

18 The predominant attitude of tall-building lawyers with respect to the questions presented in these cases is suggested by the fact that the American Bar Association deemed it in accord with the wishes of its members to file a brief in support of the petitioners. See Brief for American Bar Association as Amicus Curiae in Nos. 14-571 and 14­574, pp. 1-5.

19 See Pew Research Center, America's Changing Religious Land­scape 4 (May 12, 2015).

- - - - -

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

[7]

SCALIA, J., dissenting

every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment's ratification and Massachusetts' permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003.20 They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amend­ment a "fundamental right" overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since. They see what lesser legal minds— minds like Thomas Cooley, John Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, William Howard Taft, Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson, and Henry Friendly— could not. They are certain that the People ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to bestow on them the power to remove questions from the democratic process when that is called for by their "reasoned judgment." These Justices know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago,21 cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.

The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic. It is one thing for separate con­curring or dissenting opinions to contain extravagances, even silly extravagances, of thought and expression; it is something else for the official opinion of the Court to do so.22 Of course the opinion's showy profundities are often

__________

20 Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 440 Mass. 309, 798 N. E. 2d 941 (2003).

21 Windsor, 570 U. S., at_(ALITO, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 7).

22 If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opin­ion for the Court that began: "The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that

- - - - -

[8]

OBERGEFELL v. HODGES

SCALIA, J., dissenting

profoundly incoherent. "The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spiritu-ality."23 (Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie. Expression, sure enough, is a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say.) Rights, we are told, can "rise . . . from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era."24 (Huh? How can a better informed under­standing of how constitutional imperatives [whatever that means] define [whatever that means] an urgent liberty [never mind], give birth to a right?) And we are told that, "[i]n any particular case," either the Equal Protection or Due Process Clause "may be thought to capture the es­sence of [a] right in a more accurate and comprehensive way," than the other, "even as the two Clauses may con­verge in the identification and definition of the right."25 (What say? What possible "essence" does substantive due process "capture" in an "accurate and comprehensive way"? It stands for nothing whatever, except those free­doms and entitlements that this Court really likes. And the Equal Protection Clause, as employed today, identifies nothing except a difference in treatment that this Court

__________

allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity," I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.

23 Ante, at 13.

24 Ante, at 19.

25 Ibid.

- - - - -

[9]

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

SCALIA, J., dissenting

really dislikes. Hardly a distillation of essence. If the opinion is correct that the two clauses "converge in the identification and definition of [a] right," that is only because the majority's likes and dislikes are predictably compatible.) I could go on. The world does not expect logic and precision in poetry or inspirational pop-philosophy; it demands them in the law. The stuff con­tained in today's opinion has to diminish this Court's reputation for clear thinking and sober analysis.

Hubris is sometimes defined as o'erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeth before a fall. The Judiciary is the "least dangerous" of the federal branches because it has "neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm" and the States, "even for the efficacy of its judgments."26 With each decision of ours that takes from the People a question properly left to them—with each decision that is unabash­edly based not on law, but on the "reasoned judgment" of a bare majority of this Court—we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.

__________

26 The Federalist No. 78, pp. 522, 523 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (A. Hamil­ton).

nolu chan  posted on  2015-06-29   17:19:47 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: nolu chan (#1)

Thank you.

Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved. (Psalm 62:1-2)

redleghunter  posted on  2015-06-30   1:21:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Mail]  [Sign-in]  [Setup]  [Help]  [Register] 

Please report web page problems, questions and comments to webmaster@libertysflame.com