I’ve been thinking about this gay marriage thing a lot too, and I think the amendment is silly for a different reason. I think the whole thing should just come up for a vote and how it goes is how it goes.
Here’s my reasoning. Marriage is a socially defined construct (referring here to marriages performed by the courts–within a religion it’s defined by that religion, end of story). Therefore, ‘marriage’ is, in a sense, owned by society at large. The state’s involvement is just democracy, power to the people, or of the people, expressed in a more formal way.
If that’s what marriage is, no one political group should go running around making constitutional amendments to make a definition of marriage. Conversely, no small group of individuals should be able to force society as a whole to change their definition of marriage. It just is what we say it is. If individuals want to do other things, live together, make vows, have their own ceremonies, etc.; that’s fine. But they don’t have the right to force everyone else to change their conceptualizations of something.
Now, that being said, they have every right to do everything in their power to convince us to change our minds. When the more part of the people, i.e. society, decide to change their views, then we vote, and marriage is changed, or rather, the societally held view of it changes. That’s when and only when I think the law should change, to reflect the views of the populace, not to influence or coerce it.
As Mormons, we do our own thing anyway, so I do think you’re right that we don’t really need to worry about what other people call marriage. Wow, I think this is my longest post. To sum up, Bush is being a ninny, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.