In the 1914 case of Heyman v. Hays, County Clerk of Hamilton County, Tennessee, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mr. Heyman who had been denied a marriage license by Mr. Hays due to his Jewish faith and her Christian faith respectively which was against Tennessee's anti-miscegenation law at that time prohibiting interfaith marriages between Jews and Christians specifically. The court held that this law violated both parties' constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause as it discriminated on religious grounds without any rational basis or compelling state interest for such discrimination.

The dissenting opinion in the case of Heyman v. Hays, County Clerk of Hamilton County, Tennessee argued that the majority's decision to deny a writ of mandamus was incorrect. The dissenting justices believed that there were no other adequate legal remedies available for the petitioner and therefore a writ should have been issued. They contended that without this remedy, the petitioner would be left with no way to challenge or correct what they viewed as an unlawful act by a public official. Furthermore, they disagreed with the majority's interpretation of state law regarding county clerks' duties and powers in relation to issuing marriage licenses. In their view, these laws did not give such officials discretionary power over whether or not to issue licenses based on personal beliefs about who is eligible for marriage under state law.