Oh the irony! It is the gun advocates who are often the single issue people. I believe in States rights. Gay marriage is just one of 1000 bad consequences that result from rejecting states rights.
Gay marriage IS, in fact, judicial tyranny.
It's not in the Bill of Rights.
SCOTUS just made it up.
I thought conservatives really wanted to make sure that cities and towns were where most of the decisions were made.
Here in California our respect for the state has relegated cities and counties to the back row. Most decisions are made by the State of California and the cities just have to follow along.
Besides there are certain things that only make sense at the national level. For example, the definition of a citizen or of a legal person. These are not things that should be decided on a state-by-state basis. Similarly for marriage. How are people supposed to be able to move about the country being considered married in one state and unmarried in another?
You're smoking some good stuff if you think that if the gay marriage issue was pushed back to the states that certain states would hold out for long. With major corporations and an increasing percentage of the US population supporting gay marriage, even if this issue were pushed back to the states, I'm almost certain it would only be a matter of years before every state succumbed to the public pressure.
Most of the states sold their birthrights over a century ago: allowing the federal government to take control of significant portions of their territory, asking for money from the federal government, allowing the federal government to dictate their internal policies with little or no resistance.
Why is there a National Guard rather than 50 truly independent and well-funded State Militias? Because states are too damn cheap to support well-funded militias that's why. Why don't states refuse federal highway money and build their own roads and bridges? Because they're too damn cheap that's why. Why don't states build their own dams and maintain their own levees? Because they're too damn cheap.
Whoever pays the piper chooses the tune. The states have been allowing the feds to pay the piper for decades so we dance to the socialism tango.