The Senate is expected to take up the issue of a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in early June. The sublime Jon Rauch has a new column in the National Journal arguing against the amendment. The upshot, argues Rauch: the threat of judicial activism has been oversold, the states are addressing the issue on their own in a variety of ways, and the predicted chaos arising from discordant state approaches has not arrived. In other words, federalism is working.

The case for a federal marriage amendment is even weaker now than it was in 2004, also a national election year, when the Senate last voted on this issue. Nevertheless, we seem fated to have this discussion every two years in Congress.

Coming soon: my new white paper for Cato against the amendment.