A person who opposes same-sex marriage on policy grounds can and should also oppose a constitutional amendment foreclosing it on grounds of federalism...I'm extremely sympathetic to this viewpoint, but upon reflection (and after reading many insightful comments posted on the above blog-post) I am convinced that an ammendment banning SSM is a good thing.
Here's why. The argument that "this is not a federal matter and should be left untouched by the hands of DC poloticians" blindly overlooks reality. Reality is that federalism is basically dead in the USA. The federal government, and the supreme court, have basically indicated over the past 100 years that there's no aspect of our lives that they're not willing to legislate -- from the womb (by denying the several States to pass laws protecting the unborn) to our bodies (by saying what drugs we can and cannot put in them, because such activity falls under "innerstate commerce") to our schools to ... everything. So to naively say that this ammendment is a blow to federalism is ridiculous -- what federalism? where is this federalism operant?
The constitution is the starting point, the given axiom, the point at which a discussion of the law begins -- therefore any debate about a proposed ammendment to the constitution can't rely on *legal* arguments for direction, because whatever ammendment is passed will trump any a priori legal analysis. Thus, the debate on this ammendment should happen on moral and cultural and social grounds. I hereby endorse any ammendment making SSM illegal in the USA.
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