While I don't have a subscription to The New Republic, the short blurb on their headline article on gay marriage is enough to demonstrate TNR's complete cluelessness on the issues involved in the amendment proposal:

Opponents of gay marriage have sought to frame the debate over their proposed constitutional amendment as a matter of shielding voters and their elected representatives--that is, state politicians and local officials--from the whims of allegedly activist judges. But by allowing city officials to issue wedding permits to same-sex couples, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has thrown a major wrench into this strategy. Newsom, after all, is an elected official, and he is therefore part of the very group gay marriage opponents have long claimed they are trying to protect.

All Joseph Landau proves in this statement is that he has never read the Constitution and has no familiarity with the law-making process in the United States. Legislatures make law, not the executive or the judiciary; the executive enforces law. Saying that the legal process is satisfied when any old elected official creates a law is to argue for the abolition of Congress. Otherwise, one man could both make law and enforce law without any checks or balances on his power. Landau, in other words, argues for dictatorship. I'm assuming that Landau would find it equally acceptable for George Bush to amend the Constitution on his own, without a vote in Congress or ratification by the states, because that's the process Newsom used and Landau endorses.

Perhaps in the future, Peter Beinart could hire reporters who passed high-school civics and who research stories before reporting on them.

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I'd defend my position, but it's not really defensible. I didn't really think it through, beyond relief that at least someone reasonably representative of the people was involved in the decision this time. [Read More]

Tracked on February 25, 2004 10:13 PM