While asserting that gay marriage was gaining in popularity, Kennedy explicitly repudiated certain conceptions of democracy that had until recently been sacrosanct. “It is of no moment whether advocates of same-sex marriage now enjoy or lack momentum in the democratic process,” he wrote. Unless someone was expecting the Court to apologize for Brown v. Board of Education, this thwarting of majority rule in the name of civil rights was what the Supreme Court was for. Kennedy used the language of an affirmative action case, Schuette v. BAMN [By Any Means Necessary] (2014),
