Writing in The Catholic Thing, Prof. Hadley Arkes, in "Marriage and the Court: Clinging to the Strands of Hope," anticipates the Court's forthcoming ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges—one that will hinge on the "churning of Justice Kennedy’s psyche." Some excerpts: "Some of our friends were latching on to things said by Justice Kennedy, stirring their hope that he may just yet back away, at the last moment, from the path he has been setting in place for nineteen years. That path has led step by step, as though it were designed to culminate in a 'constitutional right' of homosexual marriage." "For Kennedy, everything has played out from the premises he put in place in Romer v. Evans (1996): the aversion to the homosexual life could be explained only by an irrational 'animus.' And so it could not be plausible for a State to incorporate in its laws an adverse judgment on homosexuality." "We’ll hear it said that 'slavery had been one of the oldest institutions; it too had been around for millennia before we came to understand its wrongness.' The conservatives invoke 'tradition' as a substitute for offering a moral account of what they wish to defend. When the claim to tradition is denied, their position collapses." "Only Justice Alito pressed the question that my readers have heard from me again and again: If marriage were detached from the purpose of begetting children, what would confine marriage to a coupling? Alito posed the problem of four people – two men, two women – wishing to marry as ensemble: 'What would be the logic of denying them the same right?' We’ve heard also of the 'throuples,' ensembles of three, and we are certain to see them seeking the answer to the same question." "These are the kinds of questions that conservative judges typically press. And they could have been pressed here to reveal even more dramatically the incoherence of the argument for same-sex marriage. But no other conservative judge joined Alito in driving the argument through. The conservative judges seemed as stunned in disbelief as the rest of us. The decision now is beyond their reach; they can only cling to hope with the rest us, as we await the churning of Justice Kennedy’s psyche." Read the whole piece here.