<$BlogRSDUrl$>

My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2004-07-16

On the Federal Marriage Amendment
 
As readers of this space know (both of them), I am not a big proponent of changing the Constitution to deal with pop culture.  I was optimistic that the FMA would be unneccessary, though it could be a case of the right far o'erreaching its rightful role.
 
But, in light of the Senate killing it, I am less sanguine now.  It occurs to me that if judges can ignore the stated will of the people, as they did to start this whole fiasco in Massachussetts, then what would there be to stop them from ignoring DOMA and ruling that the Full Faith and Credit Clause governs this issue, regardless of federal law.
 
Lefties are fond of asking "What do you need this for?"  The answer now, quite clearly, has little to do with the law and everything to do with the courts: to codify a governing principle that would not be subject to "interpretation" by a judge.  FMA would tell a judge how they must view marriage without leaving any wiggle room for legal niceties.
 
Of course, I can't find a Right of Privacy anywhere in the Constitution, either.  So I suppose it would still be possible.
 
Why is John Kerry's view of abortion so cowardly?  Because it is that same principle that governs his view of marriage.  The idea that his view of right and wrong--however formed--is inadequate to be a basis for making decisions.  And, given the chance, who supposes that Kerry would appoint a judge to the bench that would uphold the ennumerated powers to make and give licenses over the brand new and strange idea that marriage is a right?
 
But I still think the right response would be to get out of the marriage business altogether.  Let a legislature say "so you're going to take away that power of licensing from us? then we will no longer grant any such licenses."  Sure, there's an element of "taking my ball and going home" in there; so what.
Posted by: Michael / 7/16/2004 11:29:00 PM

Weblog Commenting by HaloScan.com

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?