Conservatives Against the FMA

Activist Chuck Muth, one of the few remaining examples of the endangered species known as the Goldwater Republican, puts together the conservative arguments against a Federal Marriage Amendment.

Comments

[Kevin Carson]

I hope people like him are a lot more vocal next year, when the GOP really starts to demagogue the amendment as a campaign issue. It would help to quote, as many times as necessary, Dick Cheney’s remark on marriage being a “matter for the states.”

To relieve what social conservatives perceive as so threatening, the only thing necessary would have been to exempt gay marriage or civil unions from the “full faith and credit” clause, and leave the states to regulate the issue themselves on an individual basis. Like Roe v. Wade did for abortion, federal cooptation of the gay marriage issue will create a divisive political controversy that needn’t exist. But I think that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

[Warren]

“…one of the few remaining examples of the endangered species known as the Goldwater Republican…”

I thought they were extinct, and that only their evolutionary descendants, the Libertarians, survived, albeit in small numbers.

[thoreau]

Warren-

Well, just because they seem to be extinct doesn’t mean they are extinct. Maybe we’ll find one in a fishing net off the coast of Madagascar some day.

(For those who don’t get the reference, several decades back fishermen off the coast of Africa caught a fish that had previously only been seen in fossils, and was believed to have been extinct for millions of years.)

[Rick Barton]

It is great when principle is spoken up for as Chuck Muth has done.

The fish that thoreau is speaking of is the Coelacanth. Cool.

So…the paleontologist said to the Coelacanth, “We thought you were extinct” and the
Coelacanth said, “No, I wasn’t extinct, I was in New Jersey.”

Now, in a subsequent post some one should tell from what movie I paraphrased that joke.

[Rick Barton]

Ok; the movie was, Desperately Seeking Susan

[John Thacker]

Of course, many Libertarians eagerly tossed out federalism (among other principles) in celebrating the Lawrence case, so why is this surprising?

Kevin Carson is of course quite correct that the only amendment needed would be a note about the “full faith and credit” clause. Still, social conservatives have some justification when they claim that they weren’t the ones who made it a national, one-size-fits-all case in the first place.