Federalism and same sex marriage – part I

An informal poll:

Q1: if you could restructure our constitutional system slightly, so as to remove the decision over gay marriage from the states and place it solely in the hands of the national government, would you do so?

Q2: what are your feelings about Obama’s claim that he personally believes gay marriage should be allowed, but that each individual state ought to make the decision for itself?

Obviously, I’m poking at something here—my guess is that there are a fair amount of people who would give a firm ‘no’ to the first question, while simultaneously being annoyed with Obama for stating much the same thing—but I really am not trying to frame this as a ‘gotcha.’ For one thing, there are clearly some different elements at stake in the two questions. One is strategic and the other is more about what is ‘right.’

In fact many people likely feel that precisely because there is basically zero chance of gay marriage actually falling into the hands of the national government (or rather: in the hands of the political branches), Obama ought to take the principled stand and just say ‘it’s a right and ought to be protected.’ And that’s perfectly reasonable.

Still, I think there is something strange about this. Folks seem to want the benefits of federalism (going slow acculturates people to the idea, demonstrates that it causes no catastrophe, preserves enclaves of rights when the nation as a whole might not protect them) without having to admit that this is really what they’re up to. Again, I don’t say this in an accusatory fashion. This is precisely the sort of very-light hypocrisy that really doesn’t bother me. I’m just interested in what it says about federalism and gay rights in the broader sense.

I will elaborate in post #2 on this subject, coming soon…