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I do believe that some justices who opposed ruling bans on same sex marriage unconstitutional could have been allowing their personal and/or religious beliefs against same sex marriage to influence their opposition. However, most of the justices claimed that there was nothing unconstitutional about the bans, and therefore the case was invalid. I also believe that judges who were for the ruling that the bans were unconstitutional could have been letting their personal acceptance of same sex marriage influence their support in hopes of achieving equality for the LGBTQ+ community.

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The Obergefell v. Hodges case was extremely significant for a large number of America's population. This case ruled state bans on same sex marriage to be unconstitutional - therefore legalizing same sex marriage throughout the country. This was a major win for the LGBTQ+ community.

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Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote a dissent in which he argued that, while same-sex marriage might be good and fair policy, the Constitution does not address it, and therefore it is beyond the purview of the Court to decide whether states have to recognize or license such unions. Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the dissent. In his separate dissent, Justice Scalia wrote that the majority opinion overstepped the bounds of the Court’s authority both by exercising the legislative, rather than judicial, power and by doing so in a realm that the Constitution reserves for the states. Justice Thomas joined in the dissent. Justice Thomas also wrote a separate dissent in which he argued that the majority opinion stretched the doctrine of substantive due process rights found in the Fourteenth Amendment too far and in doing so distorted the democratic process by taking power from the legislature and putting it in the hands of the judiciary. In his separate dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote that the Constitution does not address the right of same-sex couples to marry, and therefore the issue is reserved to the states to decide whether to depart from the traditional definition of marriage.

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The Court ruled a 5-4 majority for Obergefell. Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan were for the ruling of making same sex marriage legal.
"Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote a dissent in which he argued that, while same-sex marriage might be good and fair policy, the Constitution does not address it, and therefore it is beyond the purview of the Court to decide whether states have to recognize or license such unions."

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1. Mary L. Bonauto: What I'm saying is setting -- taking that tradition as it is, one still needs -- the Court still needs a reason to maintain that tradition when it has the effect --

Antonin Scalia: And you're -- you're asking us to -- to decide it for this society when no other society until 2001 ever had it.
Well, yes, that -- the State courts who agree with you. But once again, that's not the people deciding it. It's -- it's judges deciding it.

2. Mary L. Bonauto: To the extent that if you're talking about the fundamental right to marry as a core male-female institution, I think when we look at the Fourteenth Amendment, we know that it provides enduring guarantees in that what we once viewed as the role of women, or even the role of gay people, is something that has changed in our society. So in a sense, just as the Lawrence court called out the Bowers court for not appreciating the extent of the liberty at stake, in the same vein here, the question is whether gay people share that same liberty to be --

Anthony Kennedy: One -- one of the problems is when you think about these cases you think about words or cases, and -- and the word that keeps coming back to me in this case is -- is millennia, plus time. First of all, there has not been really time, so the Respondents say, for the Federal system to engage in this debate, the separate States.
This definition has been with us for millennia.
And it -- it's very difficult for the Court to say, oh, well, we -- we know better.

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Mary L. Bonauto: States do have primacy over domestic relations except that their laws must respect the constitutional rights of persons, and Windsor couldn't have been clearer about that.
And here we have a whole class of people who are denied the equal right to be able to join in this very extensive government institution that provides protection for families.

Chief Justice Roberts: Every definition that I looked up, prior to about a dozen years ago, defined marriage as unity between a man and a woman as husband and wife.
Obviously, if you succeed, that core definition will no longer be operable.

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In all lower court cases, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the bans were not in violation of the couples' Fourteenth Amendment rights.

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Same sex couples in the states of Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee sued their states due to their implementation of bans on same sex marriage. The plaintiffs argued that these bans violated the Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. One group also believed the ban was in violation of the Civil Rights Act.

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Chief Justice: John Roberts
Associate Justices:
Antonin Scalia
Anthony Kennedy
Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer
Samuel Alito
Sonia Sotomayor
Elena Kagan