The opening to Justice Antonin Scalia’s powerful dissent in the DOMA case, U.S. v. Windsor :
This case is about power in several respects. It is about the power of our people to govern themselves, and the power of this Court to pronounce the law. Today’s opinion aggrandizes the latter, with the predictable consequence of diminishing the former. We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.
Here’s the decision . Skip down to page 35 to read Scalia’s dissent, in which he articulates clearly what is and is not the court’s and the Court’s role, which in this case, and many others, the Court has grossly exceeded.
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