Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 1–9 © 2016 SAGE Publications Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1532708616640006 csc.sagepub.com Article By a narrow majority, the Supreme Court made gay mar- riage the law of the land in the United States on June, 2015. The Court ruled in Obergefell et al. v. Hodges that the “Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a mar- riage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State” (p. 1). Specifically, the Court said that the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and the under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. (pp. 4-5) The Fourteenth Amendment reads, All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. In this article, I identify and look critically at the ideo- logical themes that form the foundation of the dissenting opinions in Obergefell et al. v. Hodges. I contend that these themes speak to much larger issues surrounding the nature of our democracy and why accommodating different ways of being—even those that pose no direct threat to us— continues to face daunting legal and political hurdles. I dis- cuss how the dissenting justices in Obergefell v. Hodges reveal a distorted vision of the Court’s mission as explicitly set forth in the Constitution. That is, I discuss why in this and other cases involving the recognition of human diver- sity, the dissenting justices appear to be oblivious to the fact that the Court is constitutionally obligated to nullify any law that violates, in this case, the Fourteenth Amendment, regardless of how large any public majority democratically approves of such a law. Thus, the claim made again and again by the dissenting justices that the Court had no busi- ness getting involved in supposedly redefining marriage is false. Finally, I contend that recognizing the ideological themes found in all the dissents is vital to understanding the ideology that continues to drive and legitimize too much of our politics. I The four dissenting judges (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito) in Obergefell et al. v. Hodges wrote scathing dissents, accusing the majority of all kinds of misdeeds. Chief Justice Roberts said that the majority violated the bounds of the Court. This 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. 640006CSC XX X 10.1177/1532708616640006Cultural Studies <span class="symbol" cstyle="symbol">↔</span> Critical MethodologiesRodriguez research-article 2016 1 Syracuse University, NY, USA Corresponding Author: Amardo Rodriguez, Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, Syracuse University, 109 Sims Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244-1100, USA. Email: rodrigu@syr.edu On the Rhetoric of Dissenting Judges: Ideology, History, and Politics in Obergefell v. Hodges Amardo Rodriguez 1 Abstract In this article, I identify and look critically at the ideological themes that form the foundation of the dissenting opinions in Obergefell et al. v. Hodges. I contend that these themes speak to much larger issues surrounding the nature of our democracy and why accommodating different ways of being continues to face daunting legal, social, and political hurdles. Keywords GLBT issues and theory, gender and sexuality, queer theory, counter-narrative, methods of inquiry at Syracuse University Libraries on March 29, 2016 csc.sagepub.com Downloaded from