Supporters of a Federal Marriage Amendment have warned that without it, federal judges would impose same-sex marriage on the nation.

Supporters of a Federal Marriage Amendment have warned that without it, federal judges would impose same-sex marriage on the nation. FMA opponents have dismissed that prediction as speculation. But now a federal judge has provided confirmation. Nebraska voters amended their state's constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. But Judge Joseph Bataillon, a Clinton appointee, struck down the amendment. He reached his result via several convoluted theories--most prominently, the theory that the amendment infringed the political rights of gay people. Before the amendment they would have had to persuade the legislature to grant them marriage; after the amendment, they would also have to amend the state constitution. It's a crackpot constitutional theory: Any provision of a state constitution that sets a policy similarly handicaps opponents of a policy; the whole point of setting some policies in state constitutions is to insulate them from shifting legislative majorities. Unfortunately, Bataillon's crackpot theory is shared to a significant degree by the Supreme Court, which suggests, once again, that an amendment to the federal Constitution is needed.