MAGGIE GALLAGHER ON MARRIAGE AND FEDERALISM: From the Weekly Standard

...With the recent Goodridge decision in Massachusetts, [activist judges] are already opening the door to gay marriage. Why, then, do so many conservative voices reject the only possible effective political response?

One reason may be that many on the right view marriage as fundamentally a "values" issue. Marriage gets classified as "culture," which means private, not public; at best as "social policy," in George Will's term. If marriage is conceptualized in this way, many conservative intellectuals are led by their commitment to federalism to reject the idea of defining marriage in the U.S. Constitution. Let states experiment with different social policies and find out what works best. This view of marriage as a values question is shared by many on the left. ...

So from right to left, many express disapproval of changing our sacred Constitution on behalf of marriage. They're happy to concede that economic matters belong in the Constitution. The right to bear arms? Sacred (at least on the right). Excise taxes and the inviolability of contract? Naturally. Yet many seem to believe that a Constitution filled with such things will be somehow tainted by the mention of a girlish issue like making sure that "marriage in the United States shall consist of the union of a man and a woman."

Until quite recently, most educated Americans had a different view. ...Shared family norms enshrined in law were at least as vital to the republic as norms about property rights and democratic government.

This raises two questions: First, why did so many educated Americans believe this about marriage until quite recently? Second, why do so few public intellectuals now conceive of marriage in this fashion? ...

The practical result of the retreat from marriage as a social norm has been a vast expansion of the welfare state. What conservatives call welfare is only a drop in the bucket: High rates of divorce and unmarried childbearing are a driving force behind virtually every category of social spending. ...

THE SOCIAL NORM that needs reinforcing, in the law and in the culture, is not: Soul mates should marry. It is: Children need fathers and mothers.

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posted by Eve at 3:57 PM | link

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