Lettuce get married!

Concerning the proposed federal marriage amendment that has floated around congress for awhile now, the New York Daily News reported this on Monday:

• Arizona Sen. John McCain said Sunday the controversial proposal to amend the Constitution would step on states' rights."The states regulate the conditions of marriage, and unless there's some decisive overruling by the federal courts, then I will continue to believe that the states should decide," McCain said on Fox News Sunday. "We in Arizona should make our decisions about the status of marriage in our state just as the people in Massachusetts and other states should make their decisions," he said.

The naivete with which Sen. McCain has spoken of late is amazing. If the citizens of the states were making decisions about marriage that were not subject to policy assaults from the judiciary at the state and federal levels, McCain would be right. But it is exactly the case that, through the wonder of judicial review, the people of Massachusettes can end up deciding for the people of Arizona what the "conditions of marriage" ought to be!
The purpose of a federal constitutional amendment is to prevent the obvious and growing judicial encroachment on a state legislative function. Indeed, McCain and his colleagues are simply being asked to vote for an amendment to really allow the states to determine if they need federal protection to make these decisions by either a) defining marriage outright or b) excluding judicial review. McCain knows this (I think--unless he really did believe people wouldn't pick lettuce for $50/hr!), but he apparently thinks we are stupid. If his position prevails, then perhaps we are!