Obergefell v Hodges, the Supreme Court’s decision invalidating state same-sex marriage bans, was widely perceived as the work of a partisan elite imposing its policy preferences on the American people. Two aspects of the decision support this conclusion. First, the case was decided by the narrowest possible margin, with Justices splitting along ideological lines. Second, the majority opinion is not well reasoned, suggesting that the Justices’ decision was weakly supported by law. This perception ofObergefell as an elitist, partisan power grab to resolve a controversial social issue reflects broader concerns about intensifying divisions in our society, and their harmful effects on our political discourse. I agree with these criticisms, but I argue that the fault lies, not in the recognition of a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage, but in the Supreme Court’s intervention. Before the Supreme Court took over, the federal right to same-sex marriage was protected by a growing patchwork of cases decided by a politically diverse group of federal judges who were deeply connected to the states whose laws they were reviewing and who applied constitutional doctrine with

中文翻译：

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分裂的最高法院

Obergefell 诉霍奇斯案，最高法院判决各州同性婚姻禁令无效，被广泛认为是党派精英将其政策偏好强加于美国人民的工作。该决定的两个方面支持了这一结论。首先，案件以尽可能小的差距决定，大法官们沿着意识形态路线分裂。其次，多数意见没有很好的理由，表明大法官的决定没有得到法律的支持。这种将奥伯格费尔视为解决有争议的社会问题的精英主义、党派权力攫取的看法反映了对加剧我们社会分歧及其对我们政治话语的有害影响的更广泛担忧。我同意这些批评，但我认为错误在于，不在于承认联邦宪法对同性婚姻的权利，但在最高法院的干预下。在最高法院接管之前，同性婚姻的联邦权利受到越来越多的案件的保护，这些案件由政治多元化的联邦法官组成，他们与他们正在审查的州的法律有着密切的联系，并适用宪法学说。