Chief Justice John Roberts’ dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges was, compared to the rants of Justices Thomas and Scalia, “measured,” but it still embraced a chilling view of the gay community, basically telling us “Okay, you can have your marriages and we’ll smile politely and indulge you, but you will never be equal to the straight world because you had to go to court to force us to accept you.  If you had just waited for us to come around, everything would have been fine.  But no, you had to go and spoil it all by making some of us rule in your favor.”

I find it disturbing that the Chief Justice would take such a petulant and patronizing tone.  Suppose he said the same about blacks wanting desegregated schools or women wanting to vote: Just wait, we’ll get to you.  That’s not how it works, Your Honor.  Injustice doesn’t go away by itself.

Footnote: There’s a remarkable bit of irony in one of Justice Roberts’ sentences: “Five lawyers have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law. Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept.”  Funny, that’s what we said about Bush v. Gore.