On the Square Today

Collin Garbarino on the fiscal cliff and the fifth commandment :

The federal government paused at the edge of the fiscal cliff and decided to look before it leapt. Last week the Senate passed a compromise bill, which raised some taxes and postponed most discussion about spending cuts, and the House moaned and complained and finally decided to pass the bill too. Then President Obama had his autopen sign the bill into law, as he headed back to Hawaii to finish his Christmas vacation.

Also today, George Weigel on the marriage debate and confusions about ‘equality’ and ‘discrimination’ :

DOMA defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman for purposes of federal law (it says nothing about what states may or may not define as marriage). Prop 8 was a voter-initiated correction of the California Supreme Court’s interpretation of that state’s constitution as containing a “right” to same-sex marriage. Irrespective of whether the U.S. Supreme Court takes a narrow approach to these cases, or tries to find a “right” to same-sex marriage in the U.S. Constitution that would be binding on all the states, the marriage debate will continue. Indeed, if the Court preempts the political process, the marriage debate will likely intensify, just as the right-to-life argument intensified after  Roe v. Wade  eliminated the abortion laws of every state, forty years ago this month.