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33 – Obergefell v. Hodges
4051:
“[p. 117] The Brown [v. Board of Education] Decision and [Herman] Talmadge [Georgia Governor, 1948-55]
The most aggressive immediate reaction in the United States came from Talmadge. Talmadge, who had hoped the Plessy [v. Ferguson] ruling of 1896 would stand, was dedicating an airport in Cedartown Georgia when he learned of the decision. Talmadge recalled being surprised by the ruling:
About the time I concluded my speech someone reported to me that the Supreme Court had … outlaw[ed] segregation in our public schools. Well, I got away [p. 118] from Cedartown just as quick as I could and went back to Atlanta. The news media were calling on me for statements from all over the country. I along with I think every Southern governor … took a very strong position … [and declared] that the Supreme Court of the United States had gone too far.
Talmadge returned to Atlanta and led the charge to defy Brown. He declared at his news conference that the Justices had reduced the Georgia Constitution to a ‘mere scrap of paper,’ and that they ‘had blatantly ignored all law and precedent and usurped from the Congress and the people the power to amend the Constitution and the power of Congress to make the laws of the land.” (Thomas Victor O’Brien, “Georgia’s response to Brown v. Board of Education: The rise and fall of massive resistance, 1949-1961,” PhD dissertation, Emory University, 1992)
1644:
“A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld same-sex marriage bans in four states Thursday afternoon, creating a split among the nation’s appeals courts that almost surely means the Supreme Court must take up the issue of whether gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.…” (Robert Barnes, “Appeals court upholds ban on same-sex marriage in four states,” Washington Post, November 6, 2014)
1701:
“With the addition of Florida, more than 70 percent of Americans now live in the 36 states and the District of Columbia where same-sex marriages are allowed, according to estimates by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.…
When the court heard oral arguments about California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 2013, only nine states and the District allowed such unions.
The justices this week will be considering petitions from five states where lower-court judges, bucking a nationwide trend, upheld laws banning same-sex marriage and barring the recognition of such unions performed in states where they are legal.…
In all but one case, even the winning side has asked the Supreme Court to accept the cases and settle the issue during its current term, which will conclude at the end of June.
Without explanation, the justices in October passed up that chance. But that was before a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati ruled that there was no constitutional right to marriage that must be extended to gay couples and that states were free to define marriage as they wished.
Because four other regional appeals courts have ruled the other way, ‘the court is more likely to decide the issue now than when it denied review last October,’ Kyle Duncan, a Washington lawyer defending Louisiana’s bans, said in an e-mail.
The Supreme Court does not have to announce its decision on the petitions Friday. But generally the justices must accept a case by the end of January in order to hold oral arguments and rule by June.
If they do not, same-sex marriages will probably remain legal in the majority of states through 2015 and banned in the rest.…
The growth in the number of states offering same-sex marriage since 2013 has been almost entirely a result of legal challenges.…“ (Robert Barnes, “As gay marriages begin in Florida, Supreme Court is set to meet on issue,” Washington Post, January 5, 2015)
1958:
“The last time around, the justices declined to take up the broad question. This time, there is every reason for them to follow the logic of their own rulings over the pat 212 years and end the debate once and for all.…
And as usual, the outcome almost certainly lies in the hands of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has authored all three of the court’s previous decisions upholding gay rights. In each case, Mr. Kennedy wrote eloquently of the dignity and equality of gay people. It is hard to see how, given the combined reasoning in those cases, he could now turn back at the threshold of one of the most important civil-rights decisions in a generation.…
A solid and growing majority now believes in marriage equality; among those 18 to 29, support is at nearly 80 percent.…” (Editorial Board, “The Supreme Court and Gay Marriage,” New York Times, January 16, 2015)
2263:
“On Friday, the LDS Church joined 18 other faiths in filing an amicus brief to the court ‘to lend its voice on the matter before the Supreme Court,’ according to a statement released Monday by Church officials. ‘Though the case is about the definition of marriage, the focus of the brief is on religious freedom and the many ways the two are connected.’…
So why would The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints support LGBT rights in housing and employment on the grounds of fairness for all but oppose same-sex marriage?
First of all, the Church cannot and does not seek to force others — especially those outside the faith — to live their lives in a certain way. We bring our values to the public square and make our case through the same democratic channels available to everyone else. We can no more prohibit same-sex partnerships among the general population than we can mandate against heterosexual cohabitation before marriage. In a pluralistic society, we make space for the rights and opinions of others, persuasively argue for laws that uphold moral principles based on our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ and encourage our own members to live by those principles.
Yet, as explained in the amicus brief, the legalization of same-sex marriage across the country does far more than grant same-sex couples the right to the same benefits as heterosexual married couples. By redefining what marriage has been for most of human history, the court will impede the ability of religious people to participate fully as equal citizens in American civic life.
We already have examples. Where same-sex marriage has been legalized in some states, for instance in Idaho and New Jersey, gay rights advocates have brought lawsuits and administrative proceedings in an attempt to force religious denominations to make their religious properties and facilities available to celebrate same-sex weddings.…”
(“LDS Church joins with other faiths urging Supreme Court ruling against gay marriage,” Provo Daily Herald, April 14, 2015)
2257:
“Joining the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its appeal to the court are 18 other religious and religious groups including Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist Convention, Free Methodist Church, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the National Association of Evangelicals and the Christian Legal Society.
‘Not withstanding our theological differences, we are united in declaring that the traditional institution of marriage is indispensable to the welfare of the American family and society,’ the document states. ‘We are also united in our belief that a decision requiring the states to license or recognize same-sex marriage would generate church-state conflicts that will imperil vital religious liberties.’…” (Jennifer Dobner, “Mormon church joins other faiths in asking U.S. Supreme Court for same-sex marriage ban,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 14, 2015)
2776:
“Gene Schaerr, “Forcing States to Recognize Gay Marriage Could Increase Number of Abortions,” DailySignal.com, April 17, 2015)
2772:
“As the Supreme Court prepares to take up same-sex marriage next week, conservative scholars have produced a last-ditch argument to keep the scourge of homosexual unions from spreading across the land: Gay marriage kills.
They’re saying that legalizing same-sex marriage will cause 900,000 abortions.
The logic is about as obvious as if they had alleged that raising the minimum wage would increase the frequency of hurricanes. If anything, you’d think that more same-sex marriages would mean more adoptions.
But comes now Gene Schaerr, unsuccessful lawyer for Utah in that state’s case against same-sex marriages, to file an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of ‘100 scholars of marriage.’
‘On the surface, abortion and same-sex marriage may seem unrelated,’ Schaerr acknowledged in a post on the Heritage Foundation Web site in advance of a presentation he made to the conservative think tank Monday. But ‘the two are closely linked in a short and simple causal chain.’
To wit: Legalizing same-sex marriage devalues marriage and causes fewer heterosexual couples to marry, which leads to a larger number of unmarried women, who have abortions at higher rates than married women. As a result, Schaerr wrote, ‘nearly 900,000 more children of the next generation would be aborted as a result of their mothers never marrying. This is equal to the entire population of the cities of Sacramento and Atlanta combined.’
Case closed! Or at least it would be, if Schaerr’s ‘causal chain’ were real. He freely acknowledged that he had no cause-and-effect proof when I asked him about it at Heritage on Monday.
‘It is still too new to do a rigorous causation analysis using statistical methods,’ he admitted, saying that he had found only a decline in marriage rates in states that had legalized same-sex marriage (in fact, marriage rates have declined overall). ‘The brief doesn’t even attempt to say conclusively that this reduction in marriage rates has been the result of adopting same-sex marriage,’ Schaerr said, though there are ‘theoretical reasons’ such causation might occur.
Or perhaps theological reasons. When Schaerr quit his law firm last year to take the Utah case, he wrote to colleagues that he was going to ‘fulfill what I have come to see as a religious and family duty.’ A colleague leaked his resignation letter to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group.
Utah argued that legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to lower birth rates, pointing out that some of the states with the lowest birth rates, such as Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut, had same-sex marriage, and some of the highest birth-rate states, such as Texas and Utah, did not.
But the national birth rate has been declining for years, from 14.2 per 1,000 people in 2006 to 12.4 in 2013. Texas and Utah actually had larger drops than Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut.…
What Lincoln would think in 2015 is unknowable — but such considerations did not deter Schaerr. He also speculated that an unemployed man who got his girlfriend pregnant in a state that had legalized same-sex marriage would be more likely to conclude that ‘I’m not going to assume these obligations to this woman and this child.’
From that idle speculation, all it takes is a slippery slope and an active imagination to get to 900,000 abortions.” (Dana Milbank, “The new argument against gay equality: Same-sex marriage kills,” Washington Post, April 20, 2015)
4022:
“Marriage as the union of a man and a woman is the only institution that encourages and safeguards the connection between children and their mother and father. Although this connection cannot always be realized and sustained—and many single parents, for example, are heroic in their efforts to raise their children—it is in the best interests of the state to encourage and uphold the family founded on marriage and to afford the union of husband and wife unique legal protection and reinforcement.…” (“THE DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE AND THE RIGHT OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: REAFFIRMING A SHARED WITNESS. An Open Letter from Religious Leaders to All in Positions of Public Service,” April 23, 2015) [NOTE THAT THIS WAS SIGNED BY GARY STEPHENSON IN HIS CAPACITY AS LDS PRESIDING BISHOP]
2915:
“But this position has always been, at best, an argument for stopping at a moral way station before reaching the inevitable conclusion: Gay men and lesbians deserve dignity and respect under the law, and the principles embedded in the 14th Amendment require this.…
And the more same-sex marriage becomes routine, the faster arguments against it melt away.
If the court strikes down the nation’s same-sex marriage bans, what will its reasoning be? Under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, discriminatory government policies generally must have a rational justification. This is not a difficult standard to meet, but supporters of prohibition nevertheless have failed to come up with anything plausible.…” (Editorial Board, “The Supreme Court must finish the job on same-sex equality,” Washington Post, April 27, 2015)
2806:
“(SYLLABUS) [p. 1] Each District Court ruled in petitioners’ favor, but the Sixth Circuit consolidated the cases and reversed.
Held: 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.…
To the respondents, it would demean a timeless institution if marriage were extended to same-sex couples. But the petitioners, far from seeking to devalue marriage, seek it for themselves because of their respect—and need—for its privileges and responsibilities, as illustrated by the pe-[2]titioners’ own experiences.
The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change. Changes, such as the decline of arranged marriages and the abandonment of the law of coverture, have worked deep transformations in the structure of marriage, affecting aspects of marriage once viewed as essential. These new insights have strengthened, not weakened, the institution. Changed understandings of marriage are characteristic of a Nation where new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations.…
When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.
[3] Four principles and traditions demonstrate that the reasons marriage is fundamental under the Constitution apply with equal force to same-sex couples. The first premise of this Court’s relevant precedents is that the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy.…
A second principle in this Court’s jurisprudence is that the right to marry is fundamental because it supports a two-person union unlike any other in its importance to the committed individuals.…
A third basis for protecting the right to marry is that it safeguards children and families and thus draws meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education.… This does not mean that the right to marry is less meaningful for those who do not or cannot have children. Precedent protects the right of a married couple not to procreate, so the right to marry cannot be conditioned on the capacity or commitment to procreate.…
[4] Finally, this Court’s cases and the Nation’s traditions make clear that marriage is a keystone of the Nation’s social order.… There is no difference between same- and opposite-sex couples with respect to this principle, yet same-sex couples are denied the constellation of benefits that the States have linked to marriage and are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex couples would find intolerable. It is demeaning to lock same-sex couples out of a central institution of the Nation’s society, for they too may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage.
The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples may long have seemed natural and just, but its inconsistency with the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry is now manifest.…
[5] There may be an initial inclination to await further legislation, litigation, and debate, but referenda, legislative debates, and grassroots campaigns; studies and other writings; and extensive litigation in state and federal courts have led to an enhanced under- standing of the issue. While the Constitution contemplates that democracy is the appropriate process for change, individuals who are harmed need not await legislative action before asserting a fundamental right.… Finally, the First Amendment ensures that religions, those who adhere to religious doctrines, and others have protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.…
(OPINION OF THE COURT) [4] Far from seeking to devalue marriage, the petitioners seek it for themselves because of their respect—and need—for its privileges and responsibilities. And their immutable nature dictates that same-sex marriage is their only real path to this profound commitment.…
[6] The ancient origins of marriage confirm its centrality, but it has not stood in isolation from developments in law and society. The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change. That institution—even as confined to opposite-sex relations—has evolved over time.
For example, marriage was once viewed as an arrangement by the couple’s parents based on political, religious, and financial concerns; but by the time of the Nation’s founding it was understood to be a voluntary contract between a man and a woman. As the role and status of women changed, the institution further evolved. Under the centuries-old doctrine of coverture, a married man and woman were treated by the State as a single, male-dominated legal entity. As women gained legal, political, and property rights, and as society began to understand that women have their own equal dignity, the law of coverture was abandoned. These and other developments in the institution of marriage over the past centuries were not mere superficial changes.…
[7] These new insights have strengthened, not weakened, the institution of marriage. Indeed, changed understandings of marriage are characteristic of a Nation where new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations, often through perspectives that begin in pleas or protests and then are considered in the political sphere and the judicial process.…
For much of the 20th century, moreover, homosexuality was treated as an illness. When the American Psychiatric Association published the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1952, homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder, a position adhered to until 1973. [8] Only in more recent years have psychiatrists and others recognized that sexual orientation is both a normal expression of human sexuality and immutable.…
Against this background, the legal question of same-sex marriage arose. In 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court held Hawaii’s law restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples constituted a classification on the basis of sex and was therefore subject to strict scrutiny under the Hawaii Constitution. (Baehr v. Lewin) Although this decision did not mandate that same-sex marriage be allowed, some States were concerned by its implications and reaffirmed in their laws that marriage is [9] defined as a union between opposite-sex partners. So too in 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), 110 Stat. 2419, defining marriage for all federal-law purposes as ‘only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.’…
[10] History and tradi-[11]tion guide and discipline this inquiry but do not set its outer boundaries. That method respects our history and learns from it without allowing the past alone to rule the present.
The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.…
It cannot be denied that this Court’s cases describing the right to marry presumed a relationship involving opposite-sex partners. The Court, like many institutions, [12] has made assumptions defined by the world and time of which it is a part.…
[15] Most States have allowed gays and lesbians to adopt, either as individuals or as couples, and many adopted and foster children have same-sex parents, see id., at 5. This provides powerful confirmation from the law itself that gays and lesbians can create loving, supportive families.
Excluding same-sex couples from marriage thus conflicts with a central premise of the right to marry. With- out the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser.…
An ability, desire, or promise to procreate is not and has not been a prerequisite for a valid marriage in any State. In light of [16] precedent protecting the right of a married couple not to procreate, it cannot be said the Court or the States have conditioned the right to marry on the capacity or commitment to procreate.…
[17] There is no difference between same- and opposite-sex couples with respect to this principle. Yet by virtue of their exclusion from that institution, same-sex couples are denied the constellation of benefits that the States have linked to marriage. This harm results in more than just material burdens. Same-sex couples are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex couples would deem intolerable in their own lives. As the State itself makes marriage all the more precious by the significance it attaches to it, exclusion from that status has the effect of teaching that gays and lesbians are unequal in important respects.…
The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples may long have seemed natural and just, but its inconsistency with the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry is now manifest.…
[18] If rights were defined by who exercised them in the past, then received practices could serve as their own continued justification and new groups could not invoke rights once denied.…
[19] Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right.…
[20] The reasons why marriage is a fundamental right became more clear and compelling from a full awareness and understanding of the hurt that resulted from laws barring interracial unions.…
Indeed, in interpreting the Equal Protection Clause, the Court has recognized that new insights and societal understandings can reveal unjustified inequality within our most fundamental institutions that once passed unnoticed and unchallenged.…
[24] Of course, the Constitution contemplates that democracy is the appropriate process for change, so long as that process does not abridge fundamental rights.… Thus, when the rights of persons are violated, ‘the Constitution requires redress by the courts,’ notwithstanding the more general value of democratic decisionmaking.…
The idea of the Constitution ‘was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.’ This is why ‘fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.’… [25] It is of no moment whether advocates of same-sex marriage now enjoy or lack momentum in the democratic process. The issue before the Court here is the legal question whether the Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples to marry.…
[26] The respondents have not shown a foundation for the conclusion that allowing same-sex marriage will cause the harmful outcomes they [27] describe.…
Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.…
[28] As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.
(DISSENTING, Chief Justice Roberts) [2] Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be.…
In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand marriage to include same-sex couples, or to retain the historic definition.…
[3] As a result, the Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?…
Understand well what this dissent is about: It is not about whether, in my judgment, the institution of marriage should be changed to include same-sex couples. It is instead about whether, in our democratic republic, that decision should rest with the people acting through their elected representatives, or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law. The Constitution leaves no doubt about the answer.…
[8] The majority observes that these developments ‘were not mere superficial changes’ in marriage, but rather ‘worked deep transformations in its structure.’ They did not, however, work any transformation in the core structure of marriage as the union between a man and a woman.…
[10] Stripped of its shiny rhetorical gloss, the majority’s argument is that the Due Process Clause gives same-sex couples a fundamental right to marry because it will be good for them and for society. If I were a legislator, I would certainly consider that view as a matter of social policy. But as a judge, I find the majority’s position indefensible as a matter of constitutional law.…” (Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, Director, Ohio Department of Health, et al., Supreme Court of the United States, no. 14-556, Decided June 26, 2015)
2959:
“Following the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide on June 26, the Church released a statement on the ruling:
‘The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acknowledges that following today’s ruling by the Supreme Court, same-sex marriages are now legal in the United States. The Court’s decision does not alter the Lord’s doctrine that marriage is a union between a man and a woman ordained by God. While showing respect for those who think differently, the Church will continue to teach and promote marriage between a man and a woman as a central part of our doctrine and practice.’”
(“Supreme Court decision will not change doctrine on marriage,” LDS Church News, June 26, 2015)
2960:
“Justice Kennedy was the author of all three of the Supreme Court’s previous gay rights landmarks. The latest decision came exactly two years after his majority opinion in United States v. Windsor, which struck down a federal law denying benefits to married same-sex couples, and exactly 12 years after his majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down laws making gay sex a crime.…” (Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court Ruling Makes Same-Sex Marriage a Right Nationwide,” New York Times, June 26, 2015)
2951:
June 29, 2015
“TO: General Authorities; General Auxiliary Presidencies; and the following leaders in the United States and Canada: Area Seventies; Temple, Stake Mission and District Presidencies; Bishops and Branch Presidents
Dear Brethren and Sisters:
Enclosed is a statement by the Council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in response to the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in the United States. The statement also pertains to the situation in Canada. Local leaders are asked to meet with all adults, young men, and young women on either July 5 or July 12 in a setting other than sacrament meeting and read to them the entire statement.
Also included is background material which may be helpful in answering questions that arise.
Stake presidents are asked to see that bishops receive copies of this letter and the enclosures.
Sincerely yours,
Thomas S. Monson
Henry B. Eyring
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
RESPONSE TO THE SUPREME COURT DECISION LEGALIZING SAME‐SEX MARRIAGE IN THE UNITED STATES
Changes in the civil law do not, indeed cannot, change the moral law that God has established.…
Consistent with our fundamental beliefs, Church officers will not employ their ecclesiastical authority to perform marriages between two people of the same sex, and the Church does not permit its meetinghouses or other properties to be used for ceremonies, receptions, or other activities associated with same‐sex marriages. Nevertheless, all visitors are welcome to our chapels and premises so long as they respect our standards of conduct while there.…
THE COUNCIL OF
THE FIRST PRESIDENCY AND
QUORUM OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES
Background Material for Bishops and Branch Presidents
On the U.S. Supreme Court Decision on Same‐sex Marriage
What is the Church’s Policy on Homosexual Relations?
Homosexual behavior violates the commandments of God, is contrary to the purposes of human sexuality, and deprives people of the blessings that can be found in family life and in the saving ordinances of the gospel.…”
(“Church Leaders Counsel Members After Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Decision,” LDS Newsroom, June 30, 2015)
Obergefell v. Hodges, oral arguments to the Supreme Court
“[Mary Bonauto, attorney for petitioners] [p. 11] Times can blind and it takes time to see stereotypes and to see the common humanity of people who had once been ignored or excluded.”
[Justice Stephen Breyer] [42] “Marriage, as the States administer it, is open to vast numbers of people who both have children, adopt children, don’t have children, all over the place. But there is one group of people whom they won’t open marriage to. So they have no possibility to participate in that fundamental liberty. That is people of the same sex who wish to marry. And so we ask, why? And the answer we get is, well, people have always done it. You know, you could have answered that one the same way we talk about racial segregation. Or two, because certain religious groups do think it’s a sin, and I believe they sincerely think it. There’s no question about their sincerity, but is a purely religious reason on the part of some people sufficient?
[43] And then when I look for reasons three, four and five, I don’t find them. What are they? So therefore, I’m asking—there I put a long question, but it gives you an opening to say what all of those reasons are.”
(Obergefell v. Hodges, oral arguments to the Supreme Court, 14-556, April 28, 2015)