The court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren is remembered for its cases on desegregation, voting and the rights of criminals. The one led by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger moved right in criminal cases, but also identified a constitutional right to abortion. Under Chief Justice Rehnquist, the Supreme Court delivered the 2000 election to George W. Bush.

The Roberts court’s most memorable decisions include campaign finance, health care and Second Amendment cases in which the chief justice was in the majority. But with Friday’s marriage decision, a civil rights landmark, Chief Justice Roberts was on the losing side, and it seemed to sting.

His colleagues, he said, had portrayed him and other fair-minded people “as bigoted” for not sharing their understanding of the Constitution.

“In the face of all this,” he wrote, “a much different view of the court’s role is possible. That view is more modest and restrained. It is more skeptical that the legal abilities of judges also reflect insight into moral and philosophical issues. It is more sensitive to the fact that judges are unelected and unaccountable, and that the legitimacy of their power depends on confining it to the exercise of legal judgment.”

He suggested but did not quite say that he might vote for same-sex marriage were he an elected lawmaker.

“Stripped of its shiny rhetorical gloss, the majority’s argument is that the due process clause gives same-sex couples a fundamental right to marry because it will be good for them and for society,” he wrote. “If I were a legislator, I would certainly consider that view as a matter of social policy. But as a judge, I find the majority’s position indefensible as a matter of constitutional law.”