I'm sympathetic to the proposed Federal Marriage amendment. It's wrong for judges to impose same-sex marriage on states. However, I also don't like marriage being defined in the Constitution. I'm for federalism. Each state should define marriage as it sees fit. I could support the proposed amendment if it were changed to read "Unless otherwise defined by the legislatures of the various states, marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman." Thus, the default view of marriage would be of a man and a woman but state legislatures would be free to change this. By specifying the state legislatures, the amendment would allow democracy to work and prevent activist judges from imposing same-sex marriage. Of course, no state has yet freely adopted gay marriage. Massachusetts was forced by its highest court to enact it. Some states have enacted civil unions but of course this is not even prevented under the amendment as it was proposed in the senate. Such a large change in an important institution as marriage should be decided by the elected branches of government. I don't think the situation is the same as Loving v. Virginia where the Supreme Court struck down laws against mixed race marriages. There, marriage was not being fundamentally changed and the Fourteenth Amendment which was enacted after the Civil War to protect all races from discrimination was properly applied.
