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The Triumph of Gay Marriage and the Failure of Constitutional Law
The Supreme Court Review ( IF 2.0 ) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 , DOI: 10.1086/684251
Louis Michael Seidman

The Supreme Court's much anticipated invalidation of gay marriage bans improved the personal lives of millions of ordinary Americans. It made the country a more decent place. Even Chief Justice Roberts, at the conclusion of his otherwise scathing dissent, acknowledged that the decision was a cause for many Americans to celebrate.But although the Chief Justice thought that advocates of gay marriage should "by all means celebrate today's decision," he admonished them "not [to] celebrate the Constitution." The Constitution, he said, "had nothing to do with it".Part I of this article quarrels with the Chief Justice's assertion that the Constitution "had nothing to do with it." It argues that it is the dissenting justices, rather than their colleagues in the majority, who have ignored the traditions of American Constitutional law.Part II argues that the Chief Justice is exactly right when he says that we should celebrate the Obergefell decision, but not the Constitution, but he is right for reasons that he, himself, would disagree with. The Court's decision marks a partial and flawed but nonetheless important advance toward inclusion and decency. The majority's opinion, replete with invocations of the supposedly binding force of constitutional obligation, belittling of the large and growing number of Americans who are unmarried, and mischaracterization of the nature of the movement for gay rights, is exclusionary, reactionary, and authoritarian. Even as the Court demonstrates its (concededly limited) capacity to advance the cause of social justice, it unwittingly also demonstrates the failure of constitutional law to serve its core purpose of providing a just ground for cooperation among people who disagree about fundamentals.A brief conclusion discusses the implications of this failure.

中文翻译:

同性婚姻的胜利与宪法的失败

备受期待的最高法院宣布同性婚姻禁令无效,这改善了数百万普通美国人的个人生活。它使这个国家成为一个更体面的地方。甚至首席大法官罗伯茨在结束他严厉的反对意见时也承认,这一决定是许多美国人庆祝的原因。但尽管首席大法官认为同性婚姻的倡导者“无论如何都应该庆祝今天的决定”,但他告诫说他们“不[为了]庆祝宪法”。他说,宪法“与它无关”。本文的第一部分与首席大法官关于宪法“与它无关”的断言存在争议。它争辩说是持不同意见的法官,而不是他们的大多数同事,谁忽视了美国宪法的传统。 第二部分认为首席大法官说我们应该庆祝奥伯格费尔的决定而不是宪法是完全正确的,但他是正确的,他自己会不同意的理由. 法院的决定标志着在包容和体面方面取得了部分和有缺陷但仍然重要的进步。多数人的观点充满了对宪法义务的所谓约束力的援引,贬低了越来越多的未婚美国人,以及对同性恋权利运动性质的错误描述,是排他性的、反动的和专制的。即使法院展示了其推动社会正义事业的(公认有限的)能力,
更新日期:2016-01-01
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