Horse and carriage.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)

I strongly agree with the editors that unelected judges should not presume to "discover" that gay marriage has been constitutionally mandated ("The Week," Oct. 25). Judicial activism, however, cannot be contained by giving activist judges still more vaguely worded constitutional text to interpret and embroider. The Federal Marriage Amendment by its terms transports not just gay marriage but all marriage into the federal judicial sphere--bypassing both state legislatures and Congress. It is an open invitation to judge-made law.

By way of example: The exceptionally sparse new constitutional definition of marriage (which, in the case of conflict with state law, overrides such law, under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause) contains none of the explicit limitations imposed by states on marrying close relatives or several people at once. Undoubtedly these limits were meant to be implicit in the new constitutional definition of marriage, but as a legal matter we are left only with the hope that future judges would agree with the majority of Americans on a "common sense" interpretation.

What is certain is that the federal courts would spend decades defining marriage and its "legal incidents"--and that this would be just the first-order effect. Armed with an ever-growing ...