While I have some sympathy with the motivation to authoritatively define marriage as between one man and one woman, the Constitution is not the place. If there is a place.

The function of the Constitution, its purpose for being, is not to set in stone rules on all subjects that may be seen as important. The function of the Constitution is, rather, to set up the framework for how the United States is to be governed. Period.

The only amendment that has actually been adopted (that I can think of) that didn't deal with the subject of governance was prohibition, and it was repealed because the Constitutional approach was not appropriate to that problem. Alcohol and alcoholism were at that time seen as a major, major problem, and activists wanted what they considered a rock-solid umbrella solution, which seemed to be offered by a constitutional prohibition, but the production, sale, and use of alcohol were not the proper subject matter of the Constitution.

And before anyone cites the slavery-abolition and subsequent related amendments as being contrary to that last paragraph, I assert that those amendments DID deal with governance and basic political relations, and thus were appropriate under my principle discussed in the second paragraph.

Dave Oesterreich