h0m0s3%ual marriage

I'm a Federalist. States are supposed to be doing the bulk of governing. One of those areas where the State governs, and has governed traditionally, is marriage. States vary in whom they will allow to marry, in terms of age both relative and absolute, blood relation, and so forth. Even the States are governing marriage less than they used to.

I do not support the Federal government getting any more deeply involved in marriage than it arleady has gotten. I don't support an amendment to the Constitution, defining marriage or prohibiting marriage between any two parties. I surely don't endorse Federal law, or the grant of Federal power, to build or rebuild society, or define marriage, in the name of protecting it.

On the other hand, I don't really accept that the people who are seeking rights for homosexuals to marry are doing so to make homosexual couples happier, more devoted or faithful to each other, or safer for the raising of children. Some of the activists do indeed believe this and want it, but most do not.

I see this movement, perhaps cynically, as yet another attempt to use the legislatures and the courts to compel employers and institutions to deliver valuable benefits to yet more people. There are few genuine rights that marriage confers to a spouse under the law---immunity from compelled testimony against a spouse, for example. But there are many benefits, such as health and life insurance, free services such as university tuition, that are offered to married couples today and homosexual couples cannot as easily access. A marriage license, they think, is their ticket to getting these benefits that until now have been denied them. The force of the State will be used if necessary.

I disapprove of this practice. An employer or institution should be free to offer services and benefits to whom they wish; it follows that they should be free to choose not to offer them to others. If an employee or member who is denied those benefits finds this unfair, he is free to persuade the provider, or to take his skills elsewhere. That's happening now, and is increasingly common.

There is a limited role for the Federal government to play in this matter, pertaining to how a marriage license issued in one state will be honored in another. Congress owns this field and has already acted. The Defense of Marriage Act is law, still, though untested by the Courts, and excuses a State from respecting homosexual marriages if its legislature so moves.

Amending the Constitution is said to resemble brain surgery. It's usually permanent and we'd best not do it unless we frankly admit what we're after and can't get it any other way.

My position is to let the DOMA have its chance, and meanwhile tackle some of the genuine underlying issues of taxation and employer benefits that spur a crass economic demand for homosexual marriage. All of us, gay or straight, will be better off.