Equal Protection: Amy Ridenour (president of the National Center for Public Policy Research) has a good response to Sullivan's claim that the FMA would violate equal protection:

Speaking of Andrew Sullivan, he writes this (2/17): "...under almost any rational understanding of equal protection, civil marriage has to be extended to gay couples."

. . . Sullivan's statement relies on an improvable and unsound assumption, that is, that there is a class of people who are inherently separate and distinct from other people based simply on their announcement of a preference, even a temporary one, for sexual relations with a person of their own gender.

. . . Every American of legal age, excluding some deemed mentally incompetent to fulfill a contract, is treated the same by our marriage laws. We can only marry if we are unmarried, and if the person we wish to marry is eligible to marry. We can only marry a person if that person wants to marry us back. And, yes, we must marry someone of the opposite sex.

Equal rules. Equal protection. Anyone who wants to follow the rules of marriage can marry. Anyone who doesn't, doesn't have to.

Damn, she must have clerked for Scalia! Like I said, it's a good response, but it steals a couple of bases. Go back to the Loving v. Virginia post below and plug her scenario in there, like this:

We can only marry if we are unmarried, and if the person we wish to marry is eligible to marry. We can only marry a person if that person wants to marry us back. And, yes, we must marry someone [of our own race]

Equal rules. Equal protection.

See what I mean? Nice try, Amy, but Earl Warren disagreed.

More: I forwarded this to Amy Ridenour for comment. Nothing on her blog yet.

Still more: Response is up.