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07/15/2004: "The future of the gay marriage debate"
David Frum of NRO hits the nail on the head regarding the Federal Marriage Amendment:
Opponents of the Federal Marriage Amendment suggest–or insinuate–that without it, conservative states will be left alone to define marriage as they wish. This promise will be a short-lived one. Once 10 or 12 or 14 states have submitted to liberal local judges and accepted same-sex marriage, the federalist position now championed by the New York Times will be discarded. Today, federalists are the progressive heroes of the hour. Tomorrow, they will be condemned as black-hearted reactionaries. The forces of progress will demand that Illinois, Georgia, Arizona and the rest fall into line behind Massachusetts–and those who wish to defend marriage as it was will discover that they have no tools left with which to protect themselves.
On marriage, the United States will remain all one way–or else go all the other. Those who vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment are not voting for local rights. They are voting for a national policy of same-sex marriage–a policy that will be pressed upon this country sooner than almost anyone now expects.
It doesn't take any psychic abilities to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the track this debate will take. We've seen it before, and we'll see it again, sure as clockwork. We can even know what the argument federal judges will use will look like. It will be two-fold: 1) Marriage, though subject to certain necessary state regulations, is essentially a privacy issue in the same way that abortion, contraception, and sexual expression are, and so the state may not prevent anyone from marrying the person of their choice without a "compelling state interest," none of which will be found; and 2) that marriage, because of the economic and other ties between individuals that are involved, must be regulated in such a way as to minimize complications across state boundaries. This, along with the Full Faith & Credit clause of the Constitution, will be more than enough to nationalize the legalizing of gay marriage. And truth be told, this makes sense to me. A patchwork of marriage laws across the country would be a social, cultural, and bureaucratic nightmare. Gay marriage should either be allowed in all 50 states, or banned in all 50. And the people's representatives should decide, rather than judges.
