and may soon have the majority of the US Supreme Court
Soon? The Supreme Court has been a reliably Republican institution for generations!
The Warren Court has left the building, modern conservative Republicans have had at least a slim majority ever since. And Warren was a Republican too, just from the era when liberal Republicans existed. The problem for the Republicans is that as the Republican party races to more-and-more conservative positions, these lifetime Republican appointees on the court seem more liberal just by keeping to the same positions that got them nominated.
The court’s current swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, is a diehard Reagan Republican. Republicans own this thing already. The trick is that by today’s Republican standards, Reagan was a Communist Kenyan Muslim.
Was it conservative when it said gays have a Constitutional right to marry?
Yes, “small government” is a central tenet of Reagan-era conservatism (Goldwater, Buckley, etc), of which conservatives like Justice Kennedy (a Reagan appointee) are a prime example. The court’s moderates and liberal joined Kennedy for obvious reasons. The conservatives who opposed it represented the more recent theocratic/autocratic branch of modern conservatism, which rejects the premise of small government either entirely or as it suits them.
This is right on point Catbus, and exactly why I say modern republicans are despicable. It’s because they reject the core bedrock of conservatism (government sucks at almost everything so keep it small) and like big government when it benefits their insane desires like an over funded military and infringing on peoples rights to marry who they want or light up a joint.