Why Mormons Should Celebrate the Obergefell Decision

This past week, the United States Supreme Court ruled that states may not deny marriage between same-sex spouses the same dignity enjoyed by marriage between opposite-sex spouses. 

I have been a practicing Mormon my entire life.  Like many Mormons, I dedicated two years of that life to studying and teaching the tenets of our faith.  I believe there is only one reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision that accords with Mormon teachings:

Whole-hearted support.

Mormons believe in “obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.”  Under the U.S. Constitution, states have not been allowed to deny any person the equal protection of their laws since 1868, when the 14th Amendment was enacted.  The Supreme Court has a history of failing to sustain the 14th Amendment, but it also has a history of eventually righting itself.  In 1883, the court erroneously upheld bars on interracial marriage (Pace v. Alabama), but righted itself in 1967 with Loving v. Virginia.  In 1896, it erroneously upheld racial segregation (Plessy v. Ferguson), but righted itself in 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education.  In 1986, it erroneously upheld sodomy laws (Bowers v. Hardwick), but righted itself in 2003 with Lawrence v. Texas.  In 1972, the Court wouldn’t even consider whether state bars on same-sex marriage violated the 14^th Amendment (Baker v. Nelson).  Yesterday, it righted itself with Obergefell v. Hodges.

The Obergefell decision has not changed the law, or even the meaning of marriage.  What it has done is honor same-sex spouses with the dignity they have been owed for 147 years, just like Lawrence honored same-sex couples with the privacy they had been owed for 135 years, Loving honored interracial couples with the rights they had been owed for 88 years, and Brown honored African American students with the dignity they had been owed for 86 years.  Because I believe in “obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law,” whole-heartedly supporting the Court’s decision to honor and sustain the Equal Protection clause for same-sex spouses is a no-brainer.

Mormons also believe in allowing everyone to worship “according to the dictates of [their] own conscience.”  Mormonism teaches that marriage has eternal as well as worldly significance, and that the eternal aspects of marriage are only meaningful for opposite-sex couples.  I know that many other faiths have similar tenets about marriage.  But I could not, in good conscience, have supported a decision allowing states to impose any religion’s version of marriage on those who don’t voluntarily practice that religion.  By the same token, I cannot oppose a decision allowing both gay and straight individuals to marry according to the dictates of their own hearts, just because those dictates may be incongruous with what my religion teaches.  Failing to support the Obergefell ruling would be failing to allow others the privilege of worshiping “how, where, or what they may.”

But the Court’s opinion, penned by Justice Anthony Kennedy, puts it better than I can anyway: 

Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here. But when that sincere, personal opposition becomes enacted law and public policy, the necessary consequence is to put the imprimatur of the State itself on an exclusion that soon demeans or stigmatizes those whose own liberty is then denied. Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right. 

- Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. __ (2015) (p. 19).