Obergefell v. Hodges Summary and Analysis
This 2015 landmark Supreme Court case questions the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans and is the consolidation of six federal cases from the Fourth Circuit. In district court, judges found in favor of the same-sex couples. However, the Fourth Circuit court reversed these rulings and found same-sex marriage bans constitutional under the doctrine of stare decisis with regards to the 1971 landmark case Baker v. Nelson, wherein the Supreme Court implicitly endorsed the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans by dismissing the case (different from not issuing certiorari), tacitly upholding the Minnesota Supreme Court’s rationale that the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans is a political question.
Yet in the time between 1971 and 2015, the Supreme Court had made a series of decisions that …show more content…
Chief Justice Roberts warned that the Due Process Clause has been invoked to expand perceived fundamental rights such as in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1887) and criticized the majority opinion’s reliance on moral rather than constitutional grounds. Scalia’s dissent was characteristically strictly constructionist: He pointed out that the Fourteenth Amendment did not expressly forbid same-sex marriage bans, and that a same-sex marriage ban would not have been considered unconstitutional. Thomas’ dissent focused on the wrongful transmutation of the Due Process Clause from a protection of freedom from governmental infringement to an entitlement to specific governmental action. Alito argues, extends the Court’s Glucksberg v. Washington (1997) decision that the Due Process Clause does not protect the right assisted suicide or to marry a person of the same sex because only rights traditionally or historically considered rights are
This 2015 landmark Supreme Court case questions the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans and is the consolidation of six federal cases from the Fourth Circuit. In district court, judges found in favor of the same-sex couples. However, the Fourth Circuit court reversed these rulings and found same-sex marriage bans constitutional under the doctrine of stare decisis with regards to the 1971 landmark case Baker v. Nelson, wherein the Supreme Court implicitly endorsed the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans by dismissing the case (different from not issuing certiorari), tacitly upholding the Minnesota Supreme Court’s rationale that the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans is a political question.
Yet in the time between 1971 and 2015, the Supreme Court had made a series of decisions that …show more content…
Chief Justice Roberts warned that the Due Process Clause has been invoked to expand perceived fundamental rights such as in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1887) and criticized the majority opinion’s reliance on moral rather than constitutional grounds. Scalia’s dissent was characteristically strictly constructionist: He pointed out that the Fourteenth Amendment did not expressly forbid same-sex marriage bans, and that a same-sex marriage ban would not have been considered unconstitutional. Thomas’ dissent focused on the wrongful transmutation of the Due Process Clause from a protection of freedom from governmental infringement to an entitlement to specific governmental action. Alito argues, extends the Court’s Glucksberg v. Washington (1997) decision that the Due Process Clause does not protect the right assisted suicide or to marry a person of the same sex because only rights traditionally or historically considered rights are