More Responses to Today’s Marriage Decision: What’s Next?

Sandy Beach Writings (“(Marriage) Equality but at What Cost?”) emphasizes that she is in favor of today’s Supreme Court decision (“Let me be clear, I completely agree with the fact that gays and lesbians should have the right to marry”), but wonders, reasonably, about vertical separation of powers and federalism.

. . . what I am questioning is based on the separation of powers and the constitution is marriage, in general, a national government jurisdiction or a state matter as it has always been. . . . With this kind of precedent set I can’t help but wonder what will become a federal decision next and how far will the government expand its jurisdiction while dwindling state’s authority.

It’s a fair question, especially considering that Justice Kennedy himself, until today, was on record saying emphatically that marriage was the province of the states.

Meanwhile Tout Ce Qui Monte (“Everything that rises…”, if I’m not mistaken), contemplating “Justice Kennedy’s Assumptions about Assumptions”, explores the question of polygamy.  As Mark Steyn has remarked, American liberals look pretty short-sighted and parochial if they think they can redefine marriage this far but hold the line at polygamy—globally and historically, there has always been a much larger constituency for the latter.  Tout Ce Qui Monte also asks, if the Supreme Court wants things like marriage policy to move with the changing winds of public opinion, “why is it decided by the courts and not the democratic process?”  It’s a great point.  As Paul Mirengoff at Power Line has remarked,

The fact that, until very recently, marriage has universally been deemed to require an opposite sex component doesn’t mean that this component must be required forevermore. But a decent appreciation of democracy, human history, and the fallibility of the individual means that nine glorified lawyers shouldn’t be the ones who make the change. Nor should they be in a position where they might make it.