Homosexual "Marriage"

Here is a case (made by United States Senators Orrin Hatch and Jim Talent) for a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual "marriage." As longtime readers of this blog know, I'm on record as supporting the federalist solution, which would allow states to decide for themselves whether to allow homosexual "marriage," but the choice may be between (1) banning homosexual "marriage" everywhere (by constitutional amendment) and (2) forcing it on every state (by judicial ruling). I prefer option 1 to 2 for federalist reasons, to wit: Far more states would disallow homosexual "marriage" than would allow it, so fewer states would be thwarted by 1 than by 2. From the Mailbag I have always used "morality" to refer to codes dictated by religious teachings and "ethics" to refer to that code of conduct that a nonreligious person substitutes for a religious morality. [See here.] Reading the dictionary definitions, I see that other people do not make this distinction. Oh well, personally I like mine better. I come to your site daily and enjoy your entries, especially the definitions by Ambrose Bierce. Though I have The Devil's Dictionary in my library, I don’t get it down very often. The definitions on your site offer just the right amount of constant exposure. America at War This column by David Gelernter of The Weekly Standard is worth your time. (Thanks again to James Taranto for the link.)