Gay Marriage Divides SCOTUS Conservatives

Though Anthony M. Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, both born in 1936 and both appointed by President Reagan, often join other conservatives in Supreme Court decisions, the issue of same-sex marriage highlights an important distinction between them. Kennedy, who has penned several of the Court’s major rulings on same-sex unions, “believes that each generation has the right to conceive of newer and broader forms of liberty that merit constitutional protection,” Paul M. Smith, a Washington lawyer who has argued gay marriage before the Court, told the Washington Post. Conversely, Scalia believes in a more originalist reading of the Constitution, and has written a scathing dissent for each of Kennedy’s majority opinions.