The anti-gay forces couldn’t even muster a simple majority for their constitutional amendment. It lost 48 – 50. I concur with this editorial in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer:
No matter what one’s position is on the socially divisive questions of same-sex marriage, civil unions and other nontraditional arrangements, the Constitution is not the place to engrave social policy – as we should have learned eight decades ago with Prohibition. Some true constitutionalists of both parties, to their credit, realize that.
So the states, for now, remain in control of marriage law; the federal Defense of Marriage Act, for now, inoculates those states whose residents do not wish to recognize marriages licensed in other states. That’s a status quo that can stand while American society, in the way that it does, works out what it will – or will not – accept in relationships among its members.
Thanks to all of you who lobbied against this; thanks to the many Republicans who stood up against it; thanks to the Democrats for being so solidly opposed. This is a symbolic but important blow to the agenda of the far right. They have divided their party, and tarnished their reputation for fairness – but the Constitution remains intact and unviolated. That’s one reason to cheer.
The Dish 