GAY MARRIAGE AND AMBIVALENT CONSERVATIVES: Nick Schulz

A curious thing happens when talking to younger conservatives about gay marriage. While many of them think same-sex marriage is in some ways an incoherent notion, I haven't come across any who think that gay marriage will not at some point be permitted. What's more, many of them are not particularly distraught at the prospect. ...

To many of them, one argument advanced by the non-partisan writer Jonathan Rauch in his forthcoming book "Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights and Good for America" is likely to prove attractive. Rauch says that, if an amendment is to be pushed by conservatives, it needn't be the FMA that defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

In an email exchange, Rauch explains:

"I don't think any amendment is necessary or desirable. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is certainly constitutional, and amending the Constitution unnecessarily is a bad idea.

"But I grant that some federal judge might disagree with me and set off a national panic before being clobbered by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"So if the problem is the worry that federal judges will impose Massachusetts's gay marriages on the entire country, the way to take care of that would be to constitutionalize DOMA. The sample wording I give in my book is:

"'Nothing in this Constitution requires any state or the federal government to recognize anything other than the union of one man and one woman as a marriage.'"

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posted by Eve at 4:51 PM | link

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