A constitutional right to marry persons of the same sex […] exists nowhere in the text of the Constitution or in the history and traditions of the American people.

The National Constitution Center’s Jeffery Rosen is joined by John Eastman and Paul M. Smith to break down the historic arguments about same-sex marriage in the Supreme Court this week.

On April 28, 2015, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Obergefell v. Hodges. John Eastman discusses the case.

More than fifty million people have, by their votes, demonstrated that they continue to understand the profound importance of marriage. They deserve better than to have the decision to protect or redefine marriage taken out of their hands by the Supreme Court.

The US Supreme Court has set a precedent upholding the right of states to define marriage as the union of husband and wife. All federal and state judges—including those in Alabama—are bound by that precedent.

Courts throughout the centuries have recognized the central role of traditional marriage in procreation, child-rearing, and society, rebutting any claim that the government’s interest in furthering the institution of traditional marriage is unsupported by a compelling interest, much less by a rational basis.

Properly understood, neither [Due Process nor Equal Protection] supports a ruling that traditional marriage is unconstitutional.

The Equal Protection Clause does not compel recognition of same-sex marriages because same-sex couples are not situated similarly, in relevant respects, to opposite-sex couples. Moreover, policies recognizing only traditional marriage further society's compelling interests in procreation and child-rearing, among other things.

This Court’s task is not to judge the desirability of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) and California Proposition 8’s definition, but only to decide whether citizens and legislators may embody in law the belief in marriage as a conjugal union, as they have historically done.

There are decisive principled as well as prudential reasons for the state to enshrine [the traditional] understanding of marriage in its positive law, and to resist the call to recognize as marriages the sexual unions of same-sex partners.

Marriage laws use a criterion necessarily linked to an inherently good social purpose that we didn’t just invent. This criterion isn’t truly suspect and shouldn’t get heightened scrutiny.

The equal-protection ruling against DOMA Lochnerizes—as would equal-protection rulings against traditional state marriage laws—even if we embrace several scholars’ proposals for expanding equal protection jurisprudence.

What happened yesterday at the courthouse matters, and we must keep up our witness to the truth about marriage, by word and deed, until it is safely beyond judicial overreach.

The marriage debate is not about homosexuality, but about marriage. Upholding the truth about marriage doesn’t deprive anyone of the joys of companionship, as many supporters of same-sex marriage suppose.

In a debate with Andrew Koppelman on same-sex marriage, Sherif Girgis argues that the issue was not about equality but rather what marriage is and the reasons states are involved in the question.