Setting aside for the moment his complete lack of understanding of U.S. government and politics, let us examine Tim Dreier’s basic component arguments against the national government’s imposition of a Constitutional amendment strictly defining marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman (“Feds should not regulate marriage,” ODE, Feb. 2). (And yes, Timothy, I’m starting this response out by indicating your insatiable lack of comprehension by correcting your erroneous error of assuming that the national government is somehow the “federal” government. Don’t forget that the “federal” government is defined as the combination of the national, state, and local governments inclusively).
Let us first examine his proposition that to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment would somehow “undermine” federalism. However seductive and entertaining a thought that might be for Jarrett White and those of his ilk who look back on the Confederacy as some beacon of light in a smoke-filled, poorly lit room at the seedy basement of a strip club, it bears no basis in reality or fact. Indeed, federalism as the founders of this country understood it disappeared rather suddenly with the adoption of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments and the subsequent limitations placed on state sovereignty.
That being stated, we next move Dreier’s assertion that Article IV’s “full faith and credit” application simply cannot be construed as to require States to recognize other states’ gay marriages. And on what do you base this supposition on? Relying on Supreme Court precedent is at best unavailing, as no actual case-law exists in this matter, and lest we forget the time-honored lessons of history that you so disingenuously insist upon, some of the greatest Supreme Court decisions handed down have relied not upon the sacredness of stare decisis, as you would hope, but rather upon lone dissents and far less. Or have you forgotten that Brown was decided not on established case-law, but rather on the lone dissent of the first Justice Harlan from Plessy?
Relying on the argument that history is not in the corner of the national government playing a part in the institution of marriage is untenable as well. Or have you forgotten again that Utah’s admission to the Union was conditional not upon economic or governmental changes, but rather upon the dropping of polygamy as a legal practice. I simply cannot believe that someone who asserts so forcefully as you have a self-proclaimed knowledge of history and government forms and functions could be so utterly lacking in actual knowledge. All in all, this is an issue that must in the end be decided, one way or the other, and I assure you all that the first time that gay couple married in Massachusetts can compel the State of Kansas to recognize its marriage, the conflict will indeed spill into the political battlefield, and the war will be an ugly one. But I suppose we can always turn to Mr. Dreier for solace when that day arrives, now can’t we?
Scott Austin lives in Eugene.
