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Summary: Obergefell V. Hodges

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Obergefell v. Hodges is one of the most important Supreme Court rulings to date. This case, by a 5-4 decision, legalized same-sex marriage and established that the 14th amendment, by both the Due Process Clause and Equal Protections Clause, guarantees this right. The Supreme Court for a long time exercised judicial modesty in terms of cases involving same sex marriage by allowing the decisions to be made by the states. However, with some states recognizing same-sex marriages and others not, things began to get complicated when couples would move to other states and not get the same benefits as married couples and other similar situations that caused issues. However, when the Supreme Court took this case and ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in all 50 states, it was a prime example of the court using judicial activism. In terms of judicial activism, the Supreme Court is seen as an equal branch of government instead of being the referee between the other two branches and only stepping in when needed. An activist court does better when there are active movements on the rise, and there definitely is a strong movement promoting …show more content…

Textualism is interpretation based on what is actually writing in the constitution, which is what the dissenters in this case believed they should have ruled on. Chief Justice Roberts wrote while the ruling is fair, he believes it shouldn’t have been ruled on by the Supreme Court because it is not mentioned anywhere in the constitution. The majority ruling is more from the originalism perspective because they interpreted what was in the constitution and applied it to the situation at hand. The constitution is broad, and those who exercise originalism believe the framers left it that way on purpose in order to be able to adapt the constitution to changing

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