xepherys

I see a small problem here, though. I agree with the concept... and when America only had half a million people living here, maybe it worked great. But let's take the above statement. State A, a largely liberal state, allows gay marriages. State B, on the fence, allows gays into civil unions, but not "marriages". State C, a VERY red state, says no way on God's Green Earth. Now two men in state A get married. The live there for years doing their thing, and they pay federal taxes as a married couple. Then they move to state B or C where their status is not recognized. How do they file for taxes? Does the fed make regulations stating that gay, married-males can file jointly? If so, what about gay, unioned men? What about two men that have lived together for 10 years, but live in state C? If the fed makes no choice, then there is conflict. Something HAS to be determined. If the fed DOES choose, then at least 1, if not 2 of the states are going to be outraged and petition for changes. You end up in a teeter-totter type of situation.

Due to possible outcomes like this, there are some instances where the federal government must make a decision. States often have the power to narrow the scope of a federal law anyhow. So ideally, the fed would say, "Gay marriage is great" and let the states individually say, "No way Jose". But then it would be allowing states to trample on people's beliefs. For the fed to say "Gay marriage is amorale and cannot be in the US" does that prevent the individual states from relaxing that law to allow marriage or civil unions?

At any rate, it's a quagmire and is very difficult to pin down an easy solution that is acceptable, not even to everyone, but even to a majority.

Someone is NOT going to get what they want. *sigh*