No Evolution Here

Unlike the President, my take on same-sex marriage hasn't "evolved." From 2004:

Where I stand on the issue of gay marriage:

If a referendum were held on this matter, I would probably vote for the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples (depending on how it was worded).

I hold to my religion’s teaching that homosexual acts are sinful, but most sins are not illegal in our society, else all of us would be in jail.

Because people have deeply-held beliefs, pro and con (maybe even within the same person!), and people on one side or the other tend to cluster by geography, gay marriage should be left to the states to decide. We should try to prevent repeating the never-ending battle over abortion that resulted when the Supreme Court imposed a uniform standard across the country.

I don’t like touching the Constitution, which should only be amended when there are strong majorities in favor of a measure, but someone please tell me how one prevents an activist judge from forcing, say, Alabama, to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in California if the people of Alabama do not want to do so.

Additional comments from 2012:

1) if, like President Obama, you say that same-sex marriage should be left to the states, then you're also saying that SSM is not a fundamental human right covered by the equal-protection clause of the 14th amendment. Some legal scholars have noted the Administration's "incoherence" in opposing on equal protection grounds the Defense of Marriage Act, which says each state decides on SSM for itself.

2) what is moral is different and should be different from what is legal. According to my religious beliefs homosexual acts are sinful....but so is divorce. More to the point, gluttony, sloth, lust, greed, pride, anger, and envy are also sins, I'm guilty of all of them, and I'm grateful that for the most part they're not illegal.

3) I still have not heard proponents provide a satisfactory explanation of how the justification for same-sex marriage cannot also apply to polygamy, incest, and underage marriages. If the criterion for legal marriage is no longer single-man-single woman, then advocates for those currently illegal unions, to these unlawyerly eyes, also have a we're-in-love-too equal protection argument.