Why is amending the U.S. Constitution necessary if federal law already allows each state to decide marriage for itself?
There are already proposals in Congress to amend the U. S. Constitution. Here’s why. The relative authority of the law can be broken into four levels from highest to lowest: • U. S. Constitution • U S. statute • State constitution • State statute Many states already have some form of protection in either their constitution or statute defining marriage between a man and a woman. These provisions are only valid if not superceded by U. S. law. Congress has passed a U. S. statute called the Federal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) which defines marriage between a man and a woman for federal purposes, and allows each state to decide marriage for itself. Both these state laws and the Federal DOMA may be ruled unconstitutional, however. There is significant concern that courts may use at least two provisions of the U. S. Constitution to invalidate all these laws. These two provisions are the Full Faith & Credit Clause of Article IV, Section 1, and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendme
