Constitutional Amendment

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Feb. 10 that he would bring the Marriage Protection Amendment to the floor for debate the week of June 5.

The amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 1, would protect the traditional definition of marriage by preventing federal and state courts from legalizing "gay marriage." It currently has 29 sponsors.

Link.

I'd be curious to know what others say about this, but I'm not sure an amendment is necessary. There are currently two court challenges to the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act pending. If the plaintiffs are rebuffed and DOMA upheld, why do an amendment? Here's what Robert Bork said about DOMA in 2004 (emphasis added):

The most likely route to that ruling is the following. A homosexual couple will marry in Massachusetts, move to another state (say, Texas), and claim the status and benefits of marriage there. They will cite the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Article IV of the Constitution, which declares that states must accept the public acts of every other state. Texas will refuse recognition, relying on the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed in reliance on Article IV's further provision that Congress may prescribe the effect of such out-of-state acts. The couple will respond with a challenge to DOMA under the federal Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. The Supreme Court will then uphold their challenge by finding a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage that invalidates DOMA. The FMA would prevent this almost-certain outcome. Instead of state-by-state experimentation, we are going to have a uniform rule one way or the other: homosexual marriage everywhere or nowhere. The choice is that stark and judges are forcing us to make it.

You can accuse me of wearing rose (pink) colored sunglasses, but I'm thinking Alito and Roberts might change that outcome. I don't think equal protection right for homosexual "marriage" can be found in the Constitution, and I suspect those two men will agree with me (heck, maybe they'll even put this post in a footnote of their opinion--chuckle). Combined with Scalia and Thomas, that's four. We'd need one more, and I think Kennedy might side with Roberts and Co. And for that matter, I'm not convinced the two Clinton nominees would find DOMA unconstitutional (I've heard they're not real enamored with the gay marriage arguments in general, but I don't know much about their jurisprudential predilections in that regard).