A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Amendment follies

The stupid anti-gay-marriage amendment went down to defeat yesterday in the Senate.

As someone who has lived in Massachusetts for almost five whole days, I can confidently report that the social fabric is not falling apart, despite the existence of state-recognized gay marriage.

But seriously, folks, this is something that I think would be best handled through flexible and decentralized social experimentation. Imposing a clumsy top-down national ban on gay marriage – written into the Constitution no less! – would only prevent people on different sides from coming to some workable compromise. Isn’t that what conservatives complain Roe v. Wade did in case of abortion? I realize that there is the worry that state courts (or possibly the Supreme Court) will “impose” gay marriage on an unwilling population (which kind of makes it sound like they’ll be forcing unwilling men to marry other men, but leave that aside…), but a constitutional amendment, even if it had a chance of passing, seems like a pretty extreme “solution.”

Of course, the whole thing is simply an election-year ploy by the GOP to stir up the base and distract attention from their failures elsewhere. How about we bring back the Ludlow Amendment instead?

4 responses to “Amendment follies”

  1. Lynn Gazis-Sax

    The more I follow the same-sex marriage controversy, the more I think federalism may have more value than I realized.

    Reply
  2. Lee

    I think it may be the best way to defuse the issue and allow people to experiment with various approaches. Unfortunately, both sides seem bent on federalizing the issue, either with a constitutional amdendment or acting through the courts.

    Reply
  3. CPA

    “But seriously, folks, this is something that I think would be best handled through flexible and decentralized social experimentation. Imposing a clumsy top-down national ban on gay marriage – written into the Constitution no less! – would only prevent people on different sides from coming to some workable compromise. Isn’t that what conservatives complain Roe v. Wade did in case of abortion?”

    Well, isn’t that exactly the amendment’s proponents’ point? That any Senator or representative committed to Roe vs. Wade is by that very token signalling that he or she is quite ready to use the courts to impose an irreversible country-wide solution? So, not until abortion rights supporters allow Roe vs. Wade to be overturned, can any sensible person trust them when they claim they don’t want to make same sex marriage a constitutional right via court action.

    Reply
  4. Lee

    That’s a fair point. Though I don’t think being a Roe v. Wade supporter necessarily indicates supporting a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Individual Congressmen might have reasons for distinguishing them.

    But beyond that, doesn’t the proposed amendment do more than simply forestall a nation-wide imposition of same-sex marriage? Doesn’t it preclude states from recognizing same-sex marriage? It’s possible to imagine an amendment that simply does what the current Defense of Marriage Act is supposed to do – namely give states the right not to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. But the proposed amendment goes beyond that in forbidding the granting of marriage rights to same sex couples.

    Reply

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