On June 26, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment regarding equal protection under the law requires states to offer marriage licenses to homosexual couples.
The case, Obergefell v. Hodges, involved a homosexual couple from Ohio, which does not recognize same-sex “marriages,” who were married Maryland, which does. Last November, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Ohio, said their home state was under no obligation to recognize the out-of-state marriage.
In overturning that decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined with the traditional liberal bloc of Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan in requiring all states recognize same-sex “marriage.”
Each of the four dissenting justices – Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito – wrote his own, separate dissent. They took up various themes regarding religious liberty and judicial activism. Roberts said five of his fellow justices called into question “the character of fair-minded people” who have voted in referenda in various states to uphold traditional marriage.
