First time I’ve seen the official verbiage, lemminged from the New York Times:
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
Now, what I’d like to know is:
- I’ve been arguing that restricting state-acknowledged marriage to opposite gender is tantamount to state support of a particular, conservative group of religions & denominations, officially discrediting more liberal religious groups — i.e., the current stance is in jeopardy from a freedom-of-religion perspective. The Constitution bars Congress from passing law to establish a religion. Would that prohibition render Congressional ratification of the proposed amendment null?
- The way proposed amendment is worded, it sounds like a state could opt to make all marriages “civil unions”, getting government out of the “marriage” business. That’s something I’d be happy with — let government pre-package contracts in support of familiy, even nontraditional ones, and leave the term “marriage” or “married” to the domain of private individuals and their religious practice.