Obergefell Vs. Hodges: Interpretation or Legislation?

            Touchy topic, no? With half the country in political gridlock over the issue, propaganda (unfortunately from both sides of the argument in many cases) has made it hard to pinpoint what actually happened. People who defend the document claim that it simply showed that laws banning same-sex couples from getting married were unconstitutional via the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. If one is to read the case files, that much does seem to be true. However, people disagreeing with the case have opinions ranging from religious objections, to the claim that (as justice Scalia himself seems to believe) the court has legislated from the bench. To some extent, claims on both sides of the great debate hold water, but on account of the great amounts of propaganda, it is hard to find the real truth. Casting aside the moral objections for the moment, let us examine the SCOTUS decision from a purely logical standpoint.

            Before we get started, let's be clear on a few definitions:

§  Legislation: The act of creating (i.e. defining) law

§  Interpretation: The act of reconciling two laws to each other, neutralizing conflict, and settling ambiguity

            With those definitions in mind, let us continue to the actual examination.

            As posed by the Cornell University Law School, the questions presented (and supposedly answered) by SCOTUS are as follows: 1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex? 2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a State to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?

            Anyone in agreement with the SCOTUS decision will immediately claim, and to a certain extent, rightly so, that this is all the SCOTUS decision did. Upon reading the decision, we will find these two questions clearly answered, supporting this claim: 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. Seems simple, no? SCOTUS was pretty clear, so why all the dissent? Well, lets remember that we were going to discuss this using logic. Which means that, we cannot just accept something on the word of another, because that logically makes no sense, even if we are talking about the Supreme Court.

            There is one logical problem with the SCOTUS decision: marriage, before the SCOTUS decision, was defined as a union between a man and a women. If one looks into the legal definition of marriage, one will quickly find in this search, that according to most legal documents, even in the present time, marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman. Albeit, there is no definition of marriage at the federal level, many states define it as such.

            You're probably wondering why this is relevant, as the SCOTUS decision clearly (at least as far as the words of the case go) did not re-define marriage. But, there's a problem with not re-defining marriage. If marriage is not re-defined, then the case makes no sense at all. The decision of the case would read as such: The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a union between a man and a woman (marriage) between two people of the same sex etc. Doesn't make too much sense to me. SCOTUS would literally be requiring the states to recognize people as something they were not.

            So, what? What if the SCOTUS decision did actually re-define marriage? Well, go back and read our definitions of legislation and interpretation. The SCOTUS can only interpret, it cannot legislate, and if the SCOTUS is re-DEFINING something, it is legislating.

            We are then presented with two logical outcomes of this case, one, the SCOTUS is completely inept and has released a decision that did absolutely nothing (which, from the way people reacted is clearly not the case) or the SCOTUS has re-defined marriage and thereby legislated from the bench. To me, the answer seems clear, but once again, we cannot logically accept something on the word of another, so I'll let you figure things out for yourself.