Constitutional amendment needed to protect marriage as we know it

EDITOR:
The Feb. 29 Vindicator editorial condemning the Federal Marriage Amendment was written as if the choice facing America were between adopting this amendment and continuing the status quo in marriage law. The opposite is true. Without a federal constitutional amendment addressing the question of same-sex marriage, we shall soon experience an unprecedented upheaval in the fundamental institution that constitutes society.
Laws concerning marriage are determined by the states, but the Constitution requires that all other states give "full faith and credit" to these state actions. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts has recently discovered within that state's constitution a fundamental right of same-sex marriage. Soon we shall see in America a completely new phenomenon: legally married same-sex couples.
The Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA) of 1996 purported to allow states not to recognize same-sex marriages contracted in other states. During the debate on the bill, Sen. John Kerry remarked, "DoMA is unconstitutional. ... I think any schoolchild could understand that allowing states to not accept the public act of another is the exact opposite of what the Founding Fathers laid forth in the clause itself." Similarly, President Bush recently remarked, "There is no assurance that the Defense of Marriage Act will not itself be struck down by activist courts. & quot;
People of good will may differ concerning whether same-sex marriage should be allowed in the United States. But even those who favor it must recognize the danger to ordered liberty if such rule be imposed by judicial fiat as opposed to legislative action. Legislatures, unlike courts, need not carry things to their most distant logical conclusion.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court acted on the basis of a legal theory that claims, as Justice Stevens put it, that "the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice." Once morality is completely excluded as a source of jurisprudence, there is no legal impediment to court-ordered legal recognition of polygamy, group marriage and adult incest. To blithely assume that legalizing such arrangements will be nugatory in its effect on society is reckless in the extreme.
Adoption of the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) would have no impact on employee benefits offered by private businesses. Contrary to what The Vindicator claims, the FMA would indeed allow state legislatures, but not state courts, to create other legal domestic arrangements, including same-sex arrangements, in which specific legal privileges could be ensured. In fact, some conservative and religious organizations have withheld endorsement of the MA precisely because it does allow legislatures to create such civil unions.
A constitutional amendment that keeps American law in accord with American culture is neither ugly nor mean-spirited. On the contrary, the nullification of venerable laws by our robed masters on distant courts is an offense to a free people.
ERIC CHEVLEN, M.D.
Liberty