The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to define marriage and the family, most likely sometime this month (Obergefell v. Hodges). Here’s the good news: The justices may allow each state to define marriage and the family as it sees fit. But here’s the bad news: The justices may allow each state to define marriage and the family as it sees fit.

The point here isn’t, of course, to deny that a worst-case scenario is possible (and is even likely): i.e., the justices imposing on every state the redefinition of marriage to include all-male and all-female unions and deny children their basic human right to know and be loved by their married biological mom and dad whenever possible. Rather, it’s simply to point out that even the best-case scenario is not so good — and is ultimately unsustainable.

In the former case, it would be a majority of nine human beings (lawyers at that!) determining the definition of marriage and the family. In the latter case, it would be 51% of the human beings living in a particular state determining the definition of marriage and the family.

It is crucial to understand, however, that in either the best- or worst-case scenario, the Supreme Court is fully embracing as its core principle — at least with respect to marriage and the family — the sophist maxim: “Man is the measure of all things.” Which is really to say: Law is to be governed not by right reason conformed to reality, but by the will and the emotions unleashed to conform reality according to its whim.

The Supreme Court’s willingness to embrace irrationality (will and emotion separated from truth and reality) over rationality (reason united with truth and reality) as its core principle in governing marriage and family law should jar and shock us.

The hubris involved in the notion that human beings have the authority to define and/or redefine the most fundamental and vital relationship upon which every healthy human society is built cannot and will not remain hermetically sealed and limited to the laws governing marriage and the family. If the highest court of our land doesn’t recognize the limitation of the human will and emotions vis-à-vis a reality so basic and necessary for human flourishing, it will not recognize limitations in the face of other realities necessary for human flourishing.

To put this into perspective, consider the following question, which I’ve adapted from George Orwell’s 1984:

What difference does it make whether the Supreme Court decides it’s up to each state to determine the answer to 2+2 for itself or whether it decides to impose on every state what the majority of justices determine the answer to be?

The answer, of course, is that it differs only on a procedural level. However, on the level of substance — i.e., on the matter of pretending there are no limitations that truth and reality impose on the human will and emotions — there is substantial agreement.

Yet, many of us who wish to defend the truth about marriage and family are all-too happy to embrace the idea that the definition of marriage and family is essentially a state rights issue — as if a state, composed of mere human beings, has the authority to determine the fundamental reality of what marriage and family is.

If 2+2 isn’t a state rights issue, the definition of marriage and family — a reality much more basic and necessary to human flourishing — is even less of a State’s rights issue.

What’s at stake in Obergefell v. Hodges, then, is much more than the definition of marriage and family. The heart of the case is whether the Supreme Court recognizes the limitation of the human will and emotions and our duty to conform ourselves to reality — even if that means denying our will and emotions. Without recognizing the link between law and reality, freedom and responsibility, the irrational and arbitrary principles that will govern marriage and family law will necessarily spread out to govern other important areas of law as well.

In this situation — which, again, will be the case whether the Supreme Court imposes the redefinition of marriage on all the states or leaves it up to each state to define marriage for itself — the will to power (and, thus, the powerful) will continue its domination over logos (reality, reason) as the foundation of our law.

Tyranny, as we know from Tocqueville, can come in the form of the will of the majority: i.e., self-imposed tyranny. And tyranny, as we know from Pope Benedict XVI, can come in the form of relativism: i.e., the idea that man is the measure of all things.

Even if the high court punts the issue of the definition of marriage and family back to the states, an unsustainable principle has already been planted into the very roots at the foundation of our law. Without Logos, there is no logos. And when law is severed from logos, the law becomes by definition irrational and arbitrary — ultimately leading to the principle of might makes right.

As Catholics, we have the duty to restore belief in Logos and thereby establish the principle of logos rather than power as the foundation of American law. This will, of course, require in the first place the recognition of the core issue at stake rather than being sidetracked by the merely procedural states rights question: namely, recognizing our task to persuade our fellow citizens to recognize the existence of God, the ability of human reason to discover God’s design for marriage and family, the duty of the human will to admit that marriage and family is not a man-made institution and thus must conform itself to God’s design (reality).

And, ultimately, to persuade our neighbors that a society that binds itself to the truth of God’s design for marriage and family is finally not bound at all — but set free on the path towards authentic human freedom and flourishing.