Restricting rights through constitutional amendment is a perverse use of power

Whenever there is serious talk of amending the Constitution of the United States, it behooves us to take a look back.
The Constitution has been amended only 27 times in 216 years -- including the first 10 in the Bill of Rights, which were ratified Dec. 15, 1791. And the majority of those 27 amendments were aimed at protecting an individual's right from unnecessary government interference.
The most notable exception was the 18th Amendment, which sought in 1919 to impose on all Americans the view of some Americans about the evils of liquor. The disastrous experiment of Prohibition was repealed Dec. 5, 1933 by the 21st Amendment.
The Constitution has been amended to abolish slavery (in 1865), to give women the right to vote (in 1920), to keep states from using poll taxes to keep poor and, especially, black citizens, from voting (in 1964).
In each case, the Constitution was amended in ways that sought to treat people equally, even if established institutions treated them unequally.
Break with tradition
Measured against that tradition, the latest push for a constitutional amendment should be repugnant to conservatives, liberals and anyone in between. The current push for the "Federal Marriage Amendment" runs counter to more than two centuries of practice. Unlike amendments that presumed to tell states what they could or could not do only when the states were interfering with individual rights, this amendment would prohibit all states from extending the ability to marry to certain individuals. Specifically it would bar any state from extending the right to marry to same-sex couples.
In opposing a constitutional amendment, we are not endorsing same-sex marriages. We recognize that society's response to this relatively new concept is still evolving.
But that is exactly why the heavy hand of the Constitution should not be used to stifle a political process that could lead to some states deciding that same-sex marriages are right -- or wrong -- for their residents.
The rush toward a constitutional amendment was inspired by the Massachusetts Supreme Court's finding that the Massachusetts Constitution does not forbid same-sex civil marriages. It instructed the legislature to take appropriate action so that marriage licenses can be issued in that state.
If the people of Massachusetts are sufficiently offended by that interpretation of their state's constitution, they could work to amend it -- and there is a movement to do so. But this is an issue that the Congress and the other 49 states should leave to the people of Massachusetts.
States are the proper laboratories for emerging social trends and if one state wants to provide its residents with more freedom than another, that ought to be the state's right.
Religious vs. civil definitions
The primary opposition to same sex marriages that has emerged in Congress and has been endorsed by President Bush is of a fundamentalist religious nature, and that is troublesome. In Massachusetts, a leading early opponent is the Catholic Church -- the state's four bishops, in a letter read to parishioners, called the state court's finding a "national tragedy" that could "erode even further the institution of marriage."
But constitutions must recognize the difference between the rights, duties and privileges that are embodied in a civil union and the traditions, doctrines and beliefs that are part of a religious ceremony. Certainly the state should not tell any church that it must perform marriages for homosexuals, but no sect or denomination's theology should define a state's civil union.
There is no need for a U.S. constitutional amendment or for federal legislation regarding marriage. Congress acted seven years ago with passage of the Defense of Marriage Act to assure that one state would not have to recognize a gay marriage from another state. That's all the protection that the union needs against Massachusetts, or Vermont or Hawaii or any other state deciding to extend civil marriages to gay couples.