[supercat]

I think one point that needs to be driven home on the "gay marriage" issue is that while on many issues it is best to wait for a problem to manifest itself before being so drastic as to pass a constitutional amendment, such a delay here would complicate things as it would require retroactively revoking "marriages" that have already been formed and recognized.

I would posit that the next time such an amendment is intruduced, it might not be a bad idea to include a provision explicitly allowing states to continue to grant some recognition to "marriages" performed before the amendment's ratification without having to either grant full recognition to such marriages or recognize ones performed after its ratification. Although I would expect such marriages would, for a time, pose problems, I would expect that with time the number of such marriages still in existence would decrease sufficiently to become a relative non-issue.

[cottonboll]

Well, there are still a few republicans who remember when our party was concerned about lessening government control over our lives. Of all the issues facing our country, this one ranks right up there with flag burning and school prayer for fatuous time-wasting grandstanding. To me it is a simple 14th amendment equal protection issue: if the state recognizes a civil contract between two unrelated people for tax and property purposes, who cares what sex they are?