同性婚姻、宪法权利与民主审议——以罗伯茨大法官的反对意见为中心

Homosexual Marriage,Constitutional Right and Democratic Review

在欧伯格非诉霍吉斯案中,保守派大法官罗伯茨针对将同性婚姻在全美合法化的多数派意见做了有力反驳,他强调婚姻制度的历史变化并不能改变其系一男一女结合的本质特征,同性恋是个人自由,而婚姻是社会制度;宪法第十四修正案的正当程序,并未默示同性的"结婚权";婚姻不是单纯的个人自由,而是一项社会制度,拒绝同性婚姻合法化以及只给异性婚姻以政府优遇并不违反"平等保护"原则;以司法裁决同性婚姻合法化有违司法审慎原则,应交由民主过程决策。

In Obergerfell v. Hodge which legalizes same sex marriage Justice Roberts presents his strong dissenting opin- ion. He argues that those transformations of marriage in history do not mean the change of the key character marriage, that is, the union of one man and one women. Homeosexuality is individual freedom which express personal goals, but marriage is a so- cial institution which meet some collective requirements. The due process of the Fourteenth Amendment does not imply the right to marry a same sex couple. The policy of refusing to give those government entitlements to same sex couples does not vi- olate the principle of ＂equal protection＂. Furthermore, Roberts believe that this issue should be decided by a political process rather than judicial review as it breaks the principle of cacctiaces implementation of juclicial review.