House Fails To Rally 2/3rds Support For Gay Marriage Amendment

It's very simple.

A lot of people object to "imposing" a definition of marriage on the states, or passing substantive law in an Amendment (which, for reasons that aren't clear to me, they claim should not contain substantive law but rather only procedural law about the workings of the government).

So, once again:

Drop the language defining marriage.

Instead, write an amendment that states that no court shall have jurisdiction over the issue, nor the authority to impose any definition of marriage upon a state, nor interpret any constitutional provision, state or federal, as mandating such.

Call the bluffs of the people who claim they are in favor of "states' rights," and appease those who don't want an explicit "antigay" provision in the Constitution.

Such a hypthetical amendment does not take the power away from the states, but merely clarifies who has the power within the states to decide the issue, nor does it, by federal fiat, impose a national definition of marriage.

It could, and should, be passed, and then incorporated into the Constitution.

And then all of the dishonest gay marriage advocates will be left squealing and exposed as the disingenous brats they are.

Ultimately, they do want judge-imposed gay marriage. It's the only likely way to get gay marriage made the law.

Deny them that and make them work through the democratic process. If they can democratically persuade states to adopt gay marriage, fine.

But foreclose the judicial-fiat option by constitutional mandate.

PS, I think Congress could if it so chose, use its constitutionally-granted power to exclude this issue from decision by the courts. But Congress never seems ballsy enough to use that option, and the amendment route has the advantage of being popularly enacted by the people of the states (acting through their reps, etc.).

PPS, I'd love to see, say, John Kerry and Howard Dean contorting themselves to oppose such an amendment, arguing, essentially, that the people rely upon their judges, rather than their own votes, to decide major issues for them, and that such an amendment thereby denies them the right to have major decisions taken out of their hands and resolved by an antidemocratic judicial elite.

PPPS, if the Republicans don't do this, they're not serious on the issue, and merely want to rally conservatives in November.

posted by Ace at 04:11 PM

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