Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said he’s not interested in overturning the Obergefell ruling that legalized gay marriage, even though he dissented in the original decision.
The justice said this after Friday, even as a case that would challenge the ruling is pending, NBC News reported.
The 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision changed the definition of marriage, but Alito stated during remarks at a Washington, D.C., academic conference that he believes it should remain as previously decided.
“In commenting on Obergefell, I am not suggesting that the decision in that case should be overruled,” he clarified.
Leftists have celebrated Supreme Court precedents like Obergefell and Roe v. Wade as ironclad and untouchable.
However, the 2022 Dobbs. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization upended that viewpoint after it abolished the fiat abortion rights conferred by Roe.
A case that could have a similar impact to Obergefell is currently making its way through the Supreme Court, although its success is uncertain.
Still, Alito said that wasn’t an aim he was after anyway, which is a curious thing to admit before rendering a decision.
Alito decided it was required to give reassurances that the decision that unraveled abortion rights would not be repeated when it comes to the prospect of returning marriage to its natural and historical definition.
“As I said in my opinion for the court in Dobbs, more than once, nothing in Dobbs was meant to disturb that decision,” Alito said.
The conservative justice said he’s a “working judicial originalist,” which means that he “strives to achieve originalist aims while working within the framework of our legal system,” The Hill reported.
He used the Obergefell case as an example after the Supreme Court found that the 14th Amendment’s “broad assurance of equality for all” must apply to something that would have been unthinkable to the framers.
While conceding that this was unlikely to be the original intent of the amendment, Alito said that the precedent was nevertheless untouchable.
“Obergefell is a precedent of the court that is entitled to respect afforded by the doctrine of stare decisis,” Alito claimed, as if all precedent is forever just by virtue of being decided once.
“And as I said in my opinion for the court in Dobbs, more than once, nothing in Dobbs was meant to disturb that decision,” Alito explained.
The justice said that his flexibility in upholding a decision he objects to was a better alternative to strict originalism.
“A conscientious judge has no choice but to do what the law requires,” Alito warned.
“But we do not have an asinine or idiotic constitution, so an originalist judge should not cavalierly or happily embrace results that defy common sense.”
While the Supreme Court certainly takes precedent into account, there have been several instances where it has overruled previously settled laws, even before the modern example of the Dobbs decision.
In issues such as slavery and segregation, the high court has righted its wrongs in later decisions.
Regardless of Alito’s reassurances, there’s a chance that the case before the court that involves a former Kentucky county clerk’s right to refuse to certify same-sex marriages could be the catalyst to reverse Obergefell apart from Dobbs, Fox News reported.
In 2015, Kim Davis, who identified as a devout Christian, refused to officiate a wedding between David Ermold and David Moore and was forced by a lower court to pay $360,000 for their legal expenses.
Davis’s attorney, Mat Staver, believes his client will win and that the decision will likely follow the high court’s reconsideration of Obergefell based on the facts of the case alone.
“The First Amendment should be an absolute defense to Kim Davis,” Staver asserted.
“And secondly, we’re asking the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell, the 2015 decision that ultimately caused this problem in the first place.
“For them not to review the matter, I think, is terrible for Kim Davis and also terrible for the country because they’ve damaged the Constitution, and only the court can fix it,” Staver contends.
The decision that legalized gay marriage was made erroneously, and the precedent it set deserves to be reconsidered on that basis.
Alito may wish to be diplomatic and show impartiality by supporting it in theory, but the truth is that a bad decision should be rectified, no matter how unpopular it is to say so.
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