Is the Proposed Constitutional Amendment Inconsistent with States Rights?
Some opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment argue that it would inappropriately intrude into the domain of the states. Marriage, they say, has traditionally been governed by state law, and so if Massachusetts or some other state decides (whether legislatively or by judicial interpretation of the state constitution) to recognize same-sex marriages, people in other states have no business interfering with that decision. The states’ rights argument is both disingenuous and wrong. It’s disingenuous because the opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment also typically argue that DOMA is unconstitutional in limiting the full faith and credit due to same-sex marriages. In other words, proponents of same-sex marriage think that if any state recognizes same-sex marriages, then all states must do so as well. That may well be a sound interpretation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, but it’s hardly consistent with the claim that the question whether to recognize same-sex mar
