BARR ON FMA: Katherine Kersten

[Katherine is a senior fellow at the Center of the American Experiment in Minnesota.]

Bob Barr is right. The states should be free to define marriage and Americans should not meddle lightly with the Constitution.  But the in Lawrence v. Texas, the Court ruled that consensual sodomy is constitutionally protected.  Many observers -- including dissenters in that case -- have signalled that the Court's next step may well be a declaration that same-sex marriage is also a right under the Constitution.  If, in coming years, the Court rules that homosexuals have a constitutional right to marriage, it will in essence declare the federal Defense of Marriage Act (which Barr authored) unconstitutional, and at the same time will remove the ability of states to define marriage for themselves.  Only a new constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman can prevent this occurrence with certainty.
 
Barr quotes Dick Cheney as saying that "people should be free to enter any kind of relationship."  The fact is, today Americans ARE free to enter the relationships they choose, and churches are free to decide what they mean by marriage. The question is which relationships the state should privilege and protect. Given the Supreme Court's leanings, if the American people wish to continue to protect traditional marriage, they will have to amend the Constitution in a way that precludes the Supreme Court from removing their ability to do so.



posted by maggie at 7:19 PM VOTE

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