Michael S. Greve, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, writes in an article titled "Same-Sex Marriage: Commit It to the States":
It is rarely a good idea to enact social policy in the Constitution, and same-sex marriage is no exception. A decade or so hence, a majority of citizens may still disapprove, as they do now, of same-sex marriages. They may come to conclude nonetheless that the costs of prohibiting that institution greatly exceed the costs of tolerating it. The Constitution should not stand in the way of that collective judgment.
Taking a cue from Jonathan Rauch (who is credited in a
footnote), Greve writes that instead of the proposed Federal
Marriage Amendment backed by President Bush, a better strategy for
conservatives, consistent with maintaining federalism and the
rights of states, would be an amendment that says the Constitution
does not require the federal government and the states to
accept same-sex marriage, but then leaves it to the states (and the
federal government) to decide what marriages to recognize. If that
were the mainstream conservative position, we'd certainly be a lot
better off.