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Excuse me . . . Ever hear of something called "States Rights"?
Each state has the right to set its own marriage laws, and at what age a couple may get married.
Again I must reiterate; The less intrusive the federal government is, the better it is for everyone. So would you guys PLEASE get off this kick you are on about everything being micromanaged by a dictator in this country – that just ain't going to happen unless there is another civil war and the anti-freedom-for-America idiots actually win.
One interpretation of "legalised federally" is that the federal government would remove any restrictions it places through its own laws on marriage rights, which it currently does in this respect (DoMA), while allowing states to continue enacting discriminatory legal regimes of their own, or to abandon them as some have done (with more on the way).
This is another of your statements which define your political views to the absolute contrary of that which this country was founded on.
If the federal government has no law regarding an issue, as it would if it removed its current restrictions, then how is that opposing state's rights, presumably the variety of federalism that you regard as "that which this country was founded on"?
At present it is the current federal laws that are intruding on a state matter. I propose to overturn these federal laws, just as you apparently do. Therefore… apparently we are both in opposition to our country's founding by your logic.
Either you secretly desire to ban and restrict gay marriages using the federal government as we do presently, a demand which is contrary to your vision of state's rights, or you desire that this ban and restriction be removed and placed within the purview of the state and local authorities, where it can be either legalised or illegal, as it is presently within the several states, and is consistent with the idea of federalism/state's rights that you purport to uphold, but which has the unfortunate byproduct of having you forced to agree with me on a position (I'm not sure I'm very happy with that notion either). Because that second position is PRECISELY the idea that I described above.
It would still require the federal government to act in order to step out of the way, as it should on many, many issues, but the fact that it must first act to abolish its current power has little to do with some alternate vision of constitutionalism beyond your comprehension that you suppose I must be adhering to.
Incidentally, my actual position is that the 14th amendment takes this issue into account and protects the right of consenting adults to freely create contracts, including marriage contracts, which should be upheld or supervised by the state's legal systems. In essence, the state should have little ability to determine who can contract with whom so long as there isn't fraud, or harms, particularly involving children, neither of which occur using freely consenting adults.
That means that states which restrict these contractual rights to heterosexual adults, and exclude homosexuals, are violating the constitution. I'm not sure that this is the optimal legal situation. The ideal scenario might be for the state to step out of the marriage business altogether and allow these contracts to be developed privately and without automatic public mandated rights. But I'm fairly sure that the broader community is uncomfortable with this idea and so if it must assign rights and privileges coming from the state on this basis of a marriage contract, rights like avoiding spousal incrimination, assigning immigration status, hospital visitations, and inheritance or other property rights as well as tax benefits relating to such, it should properly extend these rights and privileges to any marriage contract that can be found valid between consenting adults, including homosexuals.
To the extent that this opposes some vision of the country's founding, you'd have to take that up with the people who wrote and passed the 14th amendment 150 years ago.
They're not a popular bunch I hear in your political circles. I'd say it's a highly libertarian amendment in that it ascribes a great deal more freedom to individuals and would work to prevent meddling by government at all levels, not merely federal. It hasn't been interpreted that way, and it hasn't been very popular with conservatives because it would prevent the kind of useless moral meddling of the sort you are fond of.