[Right Wing Professor]

The president said he endorsed a constitutional amendment "which would honor marriage between a man and a woman."

"The position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they're allowed to make, so long as it's embraced by the state or at the state level

Can someone explain to me how these two statements aren't directly contradictory?

[larlaw]

I suspect that what the President is telegraphing is that he will likely support a Consitutional amendment that says that no state is required to give full faith and credit to a "gay marriage" entered into by members of the same sex in another state. This would be in lieu of his supporting a stricter amendment that flat-out bans any state from permitting gay marriage. Keep in mind, in the name of "compassionate conservatism" the Bush administration tried to split the difference in the U of M affirmative action cases, suggesting to the Court in its brief that racial preferences are unconstitutional in those particular admissions programs, but not in all cases.

Based on previous Supreme Court decisions and the (il) logic of Justices Kennedy and O'Connor (along with the four liberals) in Lawrence v. Texas, as forewarned by Justice Scalia it is extremely likely that the current Court will indeed require all states to honor a gay marriage performed in liberal state like Massachusetts. A constitutional amendment truly is necessary simply to keep the status quo of allowing states to determine their own criteria for what constitutes a "marriage".