On Obergefell v. Hodges

I just explained the right to dissent below, and while the Internet has probably said nearly all the words there are to say about Obergefell, I figured I'd give my short two cents.

The problem in this case seems to me to be one of jurisdiction.  Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government granted the power to change how states choose to define marriage.  In fact, the federal government does not even have the power to generally define marriage at all.  Yet that is exactly what the Supreme Court does in this case.  I thought we just got finished saying that the government could not define marriage as between one man and one woman with the repeal of DOMA in United States v. Windsor two years ago, so I'm confused.

If you tell me that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection clause demands that same-sex couples have their relationships legally recognized under the term "marriage" nationwide, I will borrow a phrase from Justice Scalia in King v. Burwell: "Pure applesauce."  Same-sex couples and homosexual persons have the exact same legal protections as heterosexual couples and persons. The laws apply equally to both. In fact, both homosexual and heterosexual persons had the same fundamental right to marry before this decision, since marriage has always been understood as the union of one man and one woman.  If a gay man chose not to marry a woman, or a lesbian chose not to marry a man, this does not mean that they somehow had less of a right to marry than heterosexual men and women.  Are single men and women deprived of the fundamental right to marriage because they choose not to get married?  Of course not.

But perhaps you will reply that not only should everyone have the fundamental right to marry, everyone should have the fundamental right to marry someone they love.  However, if I grant this, it leaves no reason to deny marriage to polygamous groups, those who wish to marry animals, or even those who are in love with inanimate objects.  If marriage is based solely on whether I have feelings of love for my partner, what concrete objection could there possibly be to any of these unions?

I choose to believe that marriage is about something more.  It's about, first and foremost, bearing children and raising them well.  (If you want to object that infertile couples can't fulfill this objective and thus should not marry, by the way, I will reply that it's likely not for lack of trying, and that such couples could still have kids through various modern marvels of medicine.)  Governments recognize marriage because they know that strong families with a committed mother and father are the best environment in which to raise future citizens.  If the federal government wants to do some good, it should invest in programs that provide aid and opportunities for families, discouraging fathers or mothers from abandoning their children, strengthening families in tough financial straits.

Finally, as the dissenters in Obergefell so eloquently said, the judicial activism displayed by the Court is nothing short of astounding here.  By deciding to overrule the majority of states and citizens in our country, they have effectively declared that they know better than the people.  In this matter, the court has acted in a dictatorial manner, one completely foreign to the ideals of America.