Nick Gillespie on Richard Epstein on gay marriage.
In Hit & Run, Nick Gillespie distills Richard Epstein's WSJ piece into two of Epstein's own very astute paragraphs.
[C]onservatives' plea for democratic federalism in defense of traditional values, and then for a constitutional amendment, is wholly misguided. Restore individual liberty to center stage, and this state restriction on same-sex marriages falls to the ground with the same speed as the full panoply of employment regulations, and the extension of antidiscrimination laws into ordinary social and religious affairs.
The path to social peace lies in the willingness on all sides to follow a principle of live-and-let-live on deep moral disputes. Defenders of the illiberal FMA [Family Marriage Amendment] should look to their churches, not Congress and the states, to maintain the sanctity of the marriage.
[The WSJ link will only work for 7 days, so go see it now.]
{Update:] Maybe this Cato link will stay up longer.
posted by The Last American at 8:57:00 AM
View blog reactions
1 Comments:
So, a constitutional amendment to prevent federal courts from forcing states that want to recognize marriage one way to accept another state's radically different recognition of marriage is an affront to democratic federalism?
That's tortured.
As someone who defends federalism procedurally and substantively, I disagree. It seems to me that if your goal is to rein in federal courts that try to nationalize policy, your most powerful weapon is indeed the amendment process (although in practice, it will always be inefficient because it's hard to gain the needed votes).
Post a Comment
<< Home