There's an important op-ed in Thursday's Washington Post by former Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia -- the author of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. It's titled Leave Marriage To the States. In the battle against efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to deny same-sex couples any and all the civil benefits of marriage, Bob Barr has turned out to be an unexpected ally.
Barr, in fact, was something of a conservative libertarian
suspicious of federal overreaching. He writes in his
op-ed:
Make no mistake, I do not support same-sex marriages. But I also am a firm believer that the Constitution is no place for forcing social policies on states, especially in this case, where states must have the latitude to do as their citizens see fit.
However Barr's Defense of Marriage Act -- barring (as it were) the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages even if legally valid at the state level (as none were, or are, to date) -- was rightly seen among gays as an unfair denial of federal benefits such as a deceased spouse's Social Security, or tax-free inheritance of a spouse's estate. The overall effect was to treat our relationships as permanently "second class."
But the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) is far worse,
wiping out even state-level civil benefits for gay couples. You
take your allies where you find them, and Barr's public opposition
to the FMA should be welcomed and used.