An Analysis of the Supreme Court's Gay Marriage Decision, Part 2

By TylerR on

Read Part 1.

The Court’s Legal Justification For this Ruling

The Court justified its ruling requiring States to both license and recognize same-sex unions on four pillars. They are:1

  • individual autonomy and liberty
  • a two-person union is important to individuals
  • it safeguards children and families
  • it safeguards social order

These arguments, and the dissenting opinion, are analyzed below.

An Analysis of the Supreme Court's Gay Marriage Decision, Part 1

By TylerR on

Introduction

On Friday, June 26 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a landmark ruling about same-sex marriage. Here is what it determined:

The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.1

What does the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution state? Here is Section 1, which is the portion relevant to this discussion: