Gay Marriage: Obergefell V. Hodges (2015)

On June 21, 1788, the United States Constitution was officially ratified. Just 227 years later, almost to the exact date, on June 26, 2015, gay marriage was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court in the United States. The court case, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), states, “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….” (Obergefell). However, this court case was a 5-4 ruling and many events occurred before gay marriage was made legal. For example, in November of 2014, following a lengthy series of appellate court rulings from the Fourth, Seventh, Ninth,

It is a principle that allows courts to protect certain rights deemed fundamental from government interference under the authority of the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution (Wiker, April 21, 2016, Franciscan University of Steubenville). As previously mentioned, secular liberalism is a push towards removing Christianity from society. Because of substantive due process, the concept of what are natural human rights and what are simply wants has been skewed. The rights people demand, simply because they assume they are rights, are truly just desires. Today, these “rights” are called Hobbesian rights, after the famous ideas of the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Along with rights, the people originally wanted protection from the national government through the Bill of Rights. Today, we have certain rights that are not explicitly listed in the Constitution. As one could have guessed, these rights not listed have been flipped to mean that people now have Hobbesian, or ridiculous, rights. Secular liberalism has led to a selfish society that assumes all wants are constitutional rights. A case that occurred before Obergefell in 2015 was Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which stated that same-sex sexual activity was legal in every U.S. state and territory. Like Obergefell, Lawrence had just a five-justice majority rule. With both of these cases being so close to being ruled oppositely, it should make one wonder if there really is a majority of American citizens pushing for gay marriage and other unstated “rights.” In the end, Obergefell v. Hodges was ruled the way it was because of the growth of secular liberalism and the selfishness of