Judicial Activism and Arbitrary Control: A Critical Analysis of Obergefell v Hodges 556 US (2015) - The US Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Case

This article critically analyses the recent US Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v Hodges, the samesex marriage case. The court in Obergefell put a stop to the democratic process by removing an important issue from the realm of democratic deliberation. These unelected judges held that their nation’s federal constitution should ‘evolve’ in a way that is supported by neither the document’s language, nor its history or authority. In short, they have imposed their worldview on the people at the expense of federalism and the democratic process. This is why Justice Alito was so correct to state that such an exercise of raw judicial power ‘usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage’, adding that it evinces ‘the deep and perhaps irremediable corruption of [the American] legal culture’s conception of constitutional interpretation’.