The federal courts are starting to weigh in on the homosexual "marriage" debate, with unfortunately predictable results. A federal judge in Nebraska has struck down that state's Constitutional Amendment to ban such false marriages, claiming it goes too far and is too broad in its restrictions on what the state of Nebraska may recognize.[1][2] This sort of action highlights the need to Amend the Federal Constitution. Ideally this would not be necessary, but we have come to accept that the federal government can preempt the state laws and constitutions wherever it so desires. Once it was a given that a state could set up a state religion, that the Federal Constitutional ban on that did not preclude state action. In fact, I am fairly sure that such things happened in New England. Now, we find ourselves protected from that, yet, by virtue of that "protection," at risk of seeing religion and morality baned from the public sphere entirely by the same reading of the Constitution.
[1] http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/51/05-12-2005/6d57000d1ea9e9f3.html
[2]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/13/national/13nebraska.html?ei=5088&en=a54b702be0f1df59&ex=1273636800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print