"Isn't There a Liberty Interest in Choosing To Marry?"

Under the headline "Why So Many Conservatives Oppose the Amendment," John Russell, in the Raleigh News & Observer:

...Only a month after the U.S. Supreme Court heard powerful arguments against the health insurance mandate as unconstitutional, it rings hollow to many conservatives to insist that the heavy hand of the state come down against people who want to commit themselves to sharing a life. Put simply, if there is a liberty interest in choosing to buy health insurance, isn’t there a liberty interest in choosing to marry? 

If Amendment One were simply an annoyance to business, then conservatives wouldn’t have so much trouble backing it. But it’s so bad that scores of normally apolitical business leaders have written or spoken publicly in opposition.

Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy (speaking for himself, not the utility), lambasted Amendment One during a speech in Charlotte recently. A top Bank of America executive said that passage would be “disastrous” for the state’s business climate. 

Among emerging growth companies, the situation is even more pronounced. North Carolina is uniquely hard hit by measures that cut our advantage in fields such as technology and life science, which rely on hiring talented people of diverse backgrounds. Amendment One attacks this creative meritocracy. 

One of the strongest criticisms conservatives make of liberal social legislation is that overly broad language forces judges to make law. This happened in Ohio, which passed a amendment similar to ours. There, multiple men accused or already convicted under the state’s domestic violence statute contested their guilt on constitutional grounds. The reason? The women they abused, threatened or assaulted weren’t their wives. It took the Ohio courts two years to decide they were guilty anyway. 

Conservatives criticize sweeping laws that attempt to control the future – witness debates over climate change. Conservatives believe in less certainty of prediction than liberals, and want market forces of all kinds to play out. U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a recent case involving police searches that he wished for a limited result that would not “embarrass the future." ...