"[T]his Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be. The people who ratified the Constitution authorized courts to exercise ‘neither force nor will but merely judgment.’ The Federalist No. 78, p. 465."
-Chief Justice John Roberts, dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges
"Today’s decision . . . will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent."
-Justice Samuel Alito, dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges
"As far as I can tell, political figures are falling over themselves to endorse your side of the case."
-Chief Justice John Roberts to Roberta Kaplan, attorney opposing DOMA
"We have five years of information to weigh against 2,000 years of history, or more… [T]he problem with the case is that you're really asking…for us to go into uncharted waters…"
-Justice Anthony Kennedy
"I'm not sure that it's right to view this as excluding a particular group. When the institution of marriage developed historically, people didn't get around and say let's have this institution, but let's keep out homosexuals. The institution developed to serve purposes that, by their nature, didn’t include homosexual couples."
-Chief Justice John Roberts
"Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is very new… [Y]ou want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cell phones or the Internet?"
-Justice Samuel Alito