A Necessary Amendment

ANY day now, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is expected to declare that men can marry men and women can marry women. National politicians are already trying to figure out what response, if any, they should make.

The instinct of many people will be to echo what Dick Cheney said in the vice-presidential debate of 2000: that the regulation of marriage should be left to the states. Massachusetts can recognize same-sex “marriages,” and Vermont “civil unions,” and the other 48 states can reach their own arrangements. Federalism has not, in the past, been understood as an absolute rule in matters marital: The federal government forced states to end polygamy and to allow interracial marriages. But whether the matter should, in theory, be left to the states is irrelevant. The courts are exceedingly unlikely to let that happen.

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ANY day now, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is expected to declare that men can marry men and women can marry women. National politicians are already trying to figure out what response, if any, they should make.

The instinct of many people will be to echo what Dick Cheney said in the vice-presidential debate of 2000: that the regulation of marriage should be left to the states. Massachusetts can recognize same-sex “marriages,” and Vermont “civil unions,” and the other 48 states can reach their own arrangements. Federalism has not, in the past, been understood as an absolute rule in matters marital: The federal government forced states to end polygamy and to allow interracial marriages. But whether the matter should, in theory, be left to the states is irrelevant. The courts are exceedingly unlikely to let that happen.