Check out Jacob Levy’s devastation of the radical, indeed revolutionary, aims of the Federal Marriage Amendment. The amendment is a dramatic step to gut states’ rights, undermine states’ autonomy and forbid any civil benefits for gay couples anywhere:
The FMA was oddly written in an attempt to meet social conservative aims under cover of shoring up the separation of powers and respecting federalist principles–and while avoiding the appearance of extremism that would be created by banning civil unions altogether. The attempt to do all this simultaneously failed. We’re left with an amendment that achieves social conservative aims by subverting both the separation of powers and federalism.
Once again, a battle between conservative principles and religious right extremism.
The Dish 