Marriage and Justice Wounded, But Not Fatally

“It could have been worse,” says Matthew Franck in today’s column . “That is what the defenders of conjugal marriage are saying after the brace of Supreme Court rulings issued yesterday on challenges to that truth that is as old as the human race, that marriage is between a man and a woman. The net effect of the rulings is further damage to marriage, and to the power of the law to uphold the truth about it.”

. . . one can tell, from Chief Justice Roberts’ dissent in  United States v.  Windsor  (on the Defense of Marriage Act), that he almost certainly would have voted in  Hollingsworth  to uphold Prop 8 if the merits had been reached. But he was willing to hold—insisted on holding, for plausible reasons—that the role of a referendum proponent does not confer standing to represent the constitutionality of state law in federal court. And so he led a majority that frustrated the democratic process in California, and signaled new risks for such processes in the 26 other states that use the popular initiative. But that majority at least—it could have been worse!—declined to constitutionalize a spurious “right” to same-sex marriage.

Read the full column here .