The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Monday, March 25, 2013

George Will on DOMA



The notion that the pre-Civil War constitution gave the feds the power to define marriage or even refuse to honor the power of the states to do so is nonsense.

The notion that Civil War amendments gave it such a power is absurd.

All the same, it is amusing to see an agnostic defender of social and Christian conservatism say so.

It was, after all, the social and Christian conservatives who drove the Mormons out of the East and forced upon them renunciation of polygamy as the price of statehood for Utah.

Not a hint, in this piece, of recognition that any such thing ever happened.

Nothing here to besmirch the preposterous conservative lie that they are now and have always been the defenders of the true constitution, come what may.

Still, this time he’s on the right side.

DOMA is and was federal overreach by conservative zealots led, as I recall, by the heroic Newt Gingrich, though it was signed by the altogether un-heroic Bill Clinton.

But neither DOMA nor state laws discountenancing gay marriage violate the 5th Amendment or the 14th Amendment, as the liberals want the court to say.

I wonder what Will would say if Utah decided to grow a pair and legally recognize Mormon – and Muslim? – polygamy.

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