The Lichfield Group

The United States Constitution needs amending to prevent state court judges from usurping legislative power to ordain same-sex marriages through exotic interpretations of state constitutions or statutes. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts exemplifies the usurpation, and has provoked a proposed amendment to the state constitution to undo its judicial caper. But curative political remedies are unsatisfactory. To apply them retroactively to dissolve homosexual marriages legally consummated under a judicial roof would be both wrenching and unfair to the affected same-sex couples. Accordingly, a constitutional amendment to forestall state judicial outlandishness in same-sex marriage litigation is justified. By insisting that the subject remain with legislatures or the people through popular initiative or referendum, the contemporaneous consensus amendment would address a salient feature of democratic governance, the customary yardstick for determining whether an issue is worthy of enshrinement in the Federal Constitution.

Convincing evidence convicts President George W. Bush of sacrificing a prolonged and enlightened United States occupation of post-Saddam Iraq to the presidential electoral cycle. The best attitude for capturing the White House, however, is craving being right more than being president. By persisting in a mad dash to transfer United States sovereignty to some unknown indigenous Iraqi authority by June 30, 2004, President Bush is courting a dismembered country, spiraling oil prices, and defeat next November. He should learn from his father’s irresolution over toppling Saddam and his betrayals of the Kurds and Shiites at the conclusion of the 1991 Persian Gulf war.