Some e-mails I’ve gotten lead me to return to a couple of items I posted last September 11. First, I think it’s wrong for the nation as a whole — even if 38 states agree to it — to block state voters and legislators from allowing same-sex marriage, just as it’s wrong for the federal courts (or for the action of one state) to force state voters and legislators to allow same-sex marriage.
Second, I think the following Amendment would be quite defensible:
No part of this Constitution shall be interpreted as requiring any state, or the federal government, to recognize or allow same-sex marriages.
This amendment would indeed protect states from national meddling, as opposed to the Federal Marriage Amendment, which will just replace one sort of national interference with another. I think the amendment may be premature, since I doubt that the judicial interpretations that it would prevent will actually happen. But I may be mistaken, and I can certainly see the argument for forestalling them now, rather than waiting until later, when the Amendment may be still harder to pass.
This amendment will not stop state courts from imposing gay marriage under state constitutions. But I don’t see why the nation as a whole should save state voters from this sort of overreaching by state judges; state voters and legislators can and should correct such problems themselves.
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