Why DOMA Matters

President Obama says his Justice Department will stop taking cases involving gay marriage. He continues to call the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. Shocking as it may seem to those who know me, I cannot find any constitutional reason the Federal government should have enacted DOMA. Some try to argue that the states need this kind of protection to keep same-sex couples married in one state from claiming rights in other states which do not recognize same-sex marriage. This is a specious argument. Prostitution is legal in Nevada (for now) but practitioners cannot take their trade to other states and claim protection based on its legality in Nevada. Citizens of Arizona can carry concealed firearms in Arizona, but they cannot take that right to other states. Medical marijuana is legal in Michigan, but if a patient is caught smoking weed in Ohio, he will be charged with drug possession. And so on nearly ad infinitum.

It used to be a cardinal principle that the states could do pretty much what they want as long as it does not countermand the US Constitution. That was back when the Constitution was thought to mean something permanent and objective. Now it seems that the Constitution is either blatantly ignored or else assumed to be fluid to the point of meaninglessness. I am enough of a libertarian to believe that the Federal government has no business interfering in the private lives of US citizens. The ridiculous lengths to which “equal protection” and “interstate commerce” have been stretched strain credulity. Honestly, I believe DOMA is unconstitutional.

That said, I believe marriage as an institution between one man and one woman should be defended with the same vigor as the enumerated rights in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. The purpose of the Bill of Rights was precisely to keep the Federal government from taking from citizens those rights which are elemental to the operation of a free society. It saddens me that many well-intentioned people are suggesting that the right of gays to marry is one of those elemental rights. Do I sound conflicted? Am I contradicting myself? I don’t think so.

If gays and lesbians want to live together in some kind of recognized union, I do not see how a pluralistic society can forbid them. But that society can refuse to call it marriage. Some argue that this is just a matter of semantics, but I disagree; words mean things. Marriage is an institution because it transcends the mere dictionary definition of the word. Marriage is the foundation, the bedrock of a society. For tens of thousands of years societies have seen the need to restrain the chaos of uncontrolled sexual impulse by orchestrating the music of procreation.

Not to go all Biology 101, but sexual intercourse has a natural consequence: children. True, since the middle of the last century this relationship has been somewhat decoupled (pardon the pun.) Francis Fukuyama wisely noted that this severing of sex and procreation played a starring role in the ending of history as we know it. It may well have been the bell sounding the final round in the fight for a civil society. Family is the foundation of any society; destroy the foundation and you endanger the whole building. Say what you will about the right of people to do whatever they like in their bedrooms, chaos ensues if the ties that bind families are broken.

Marriage has long been that tie. Don’t talk to me about same-sex couples adopting and creating wonderful families. There will never be a same-sex pregnancy; babies come from man-woman relationships. Even artificial insemination or whatever else might be suggested must involve a donation from each of the two sexes. The “natural” way of humanity is for a man and a woman to make a baby and then nurture it until it can become a productive member of society. That process requires a commitment if it is to work properly. Marriage has historically served as that commitment.

All of the perversions of the “natural” way of things create chaos – premarital, extramarital, polygamal, homosexual, incestual, bestial sex all destroy the order which traditional marriage brings to society. I think we need an awareness of D.O.M.A. in this country, but it stands for don’t obscure marriage anymore. There is enough chaos in the world as it is. Redefining marriage will only add to it.