Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, dissenting from the court's decision that found there was a constitutional right to marriage equality, wrote on Friday that the Constitution "says nothing about a right to same-sex marriage."
In Alito's individual dissent, which was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, he wrote that same-sex marriage "lacks deep roots" and "is contrary to long-established tradition." He also blamed unmarried mothers for what he sees as a change in public attitudes about marriage.
"For millennia, marriage was inextricably linked to the one thing that only an opposite-sex couple can do: procreate," Alito wrote. "If this traditional understanding of the purpose of marriage does not ring true to all ears today, that is probably because the tie between marriage and procreation has frayed. Today, for instance, more than 40% of all children in this country are born to unmarried women. This development undoubtedly is both a cause and a result of changes in our society’s understanding of marriage."
Alito said the majority opinion "compares same-sex marriage bans to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women" and will be "exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent."
He also expressed his fears about what will happen to those who do not believe that gay and lesbians have the right to marry.
"I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools," Alito wrote.
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