A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that four states are allowed to prohibit same-sex unions. This decision could force the U.S. Supreme Court to review cases on the issue.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed lower courts' rulings in a 2-1 vote. This involved Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky, whose marriage bans had been struck down.

"When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers," Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote in the ruling. "Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way."

He added that it's not the judicial branch's responsibility to make "such a fundamental change to such a fundamental social institution."

The dissenting vote came from Senior Circuit Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey, who said that Sutton and Judge Deborah Cook's votes read more like philosophy than a court decision.

"Instead of recognizing the plaintiffs as persons, suffering actual harm as a result of being denied the right to marry where they reside or the right to have their valid marriages recognized there," Daughtrey said. "My colleagues view the plaintiffs as social activists who have somehow stumbled into federal court."

Meanwhile, CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin commented.

"This is a very important decision from the federal court of appeals in Cincinnati, which disagreed with every other circuit court that has decided this case so far. [The court said] there is not a constitutional right to same-sex marriage," he said.

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