To begin with, there is no federal ban on gay marriage.
DOMA is not a federal ban on gay marriage.
It is a law instructing federal authorities not to recognize
anything but heterosexual, monogamous marriages for federal legal purposes.
It in no way interferes with or diminishes state authority over
what each of the states individually may allow or forbid in their marriage law.
But DOMA seems to me unconstitutional vis-à-vis both full
faith and credit and the First Amendment’s religion clauses for so
spectacularly discountenancing any form of marriage other than the
Judeo-Christian norm.
As for the states, I don’t see any honest way to say they
cannot do what they want with marriage law.
The incorporation doctrine is false and no frank reading of
equal protection, due process, or privileges and immunities is germane
On the other hand, if we swallow the whopper that the First
Amendment constrains the states in the same ways it does the federal government
then any state law privileging the Judeo-Christian norm over other forms of
marriage is unconstitutional.
But nobody but an atheist or a libertarian would even
suggest so strong a reading of both disestablishment and free exercise.
As for me, I find that people are more likely to find the
courage for a frank reading of the First Amendment and the whole Bill of Rights
if they read them in the conviction that the incorporation doctrine is simply wrong
and they no more bind the states today than they did before the Civil War.
As to the bishop, I wonder if he might at some point think
religious pluralism ought to extend to a legal pluralism regarding lawful forms
of marriage.
Polygamy for Mormons and Muslims, Your Eminence?
Liberals would freak, of course.
Polygamy would really
irk the feminazis.
This man Wuerl has risen fast.
He could yet be a pope.
No comments:
Post a Comment