Marriage

Jeff Jacoby writes:

 

WHEN CONGRESS PASSED the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, same-sex marriage did not exist in the United States. Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's 4-3 decision finding a right to same-sex marriage in the state constitution, was still seven years in the future.

But the crusade to fundamentally redefine marriage was already in progress, and Washington understood that once gay marriage was legalized anywhere, the crusaders would go to court to demand that it be recognized everywhere. So Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act to make two things clear: First, that no state could be forced to deem a same-sex couple "married" merely because another state did so. And second, that as far as the federal government and federal law were concerned, "marriage" would continue to mean what it had always meant: the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife.
....

The Defense of Marriage Act understandably sticks in the craw of those who want marriage to mean something the vast majority of Americans have never accepted. But is the longstanding national definition unconstitutional merely because some people reject it? The federal courts have never said so before; there is no good reason for them to say so now.

SOURCE