Earlier this week, a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled that the state’s definition of marriage as one man and one woman is a violation of the US Constitution, relying on the intellectually loose US Supreme Court decision authored last summer by Justice Anthony Kennedy in the Windsor case.

The Oklahoma judge wrote, “Equal protection is at the very heart of our legal system and central to our consent to be governed. It is not a scarce commodity to be meted out begrudgingly or in short portions. Therefore, the majority view in Oklahoma must give way to individual constitutional rights.”

But something is missing here. If constitutional rights are to be vindicated–even equal protection rights–then judges must acknowledge that constitutional rights go beyond simply “individual” rights.

Children, for example, are not simply individual rights bearers; for their rights to be vindicated, if children are to flourish and be safe, the courts must protect the authority of their parents or guardians. Students are not just individuals; they have different convictions and values, and so respect for students requires protection of the institutional freedom of different kinds of schools. Honoring employee rights requires protecting the rights of varied kinds of employers and the rights of unions.