Love and Marriage

("The Supreme Court's Lonely Hearts Club")

Mr. Cobb gives a fundamentally flawed reading of the majority opinion. It is not an indictment of the single life, notwithstanding the oft quoted language of Justice Kennedy. This momentous decision did not denigrate those who chose not to wed, but found constitutional mandate in the freedom of all to make that choice.

Last week the Supreme Court wrestled with the intended meaning of one sentence of the Affordable Care Act. Just as in that matter, the Obergefell decision must be read as a whole, not in isolated phrases, no matter how striking. While the minority in King v Burwell attempted to imbue meaning to 900 pages of legislation based on a single phrase, that argument was rightly rejected as specious.

So too, devoting an opinion piece to the notion that the same sex marriage declaration was a guide to love and happiness does a material disservice to the Court and to our nation. The gay and lesbian community fought a long and enormously hard battle for recognition, for understanding that they should have the same rights and privileges as all others. To try to turn that struggle into a footnote is both an absurd and insulting interpretation, not worthy of serious contemplation.