Gay Marriage

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.

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: