Today is the 90th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment.

It is an occasion for your humble Blog Goliard to remark upon two things.

First, he would like to remind the rest of America (especially those who love to look down their noses at the rubes out in flyover country…even if they’re not entirely sure where Idaho or Iowa are, or even if they’re the same state or not) that we in the Mountain West were way ahead of you here.

Second, he would like to reiterate his main point from two posts prior (The Obsolescence of Article V). If it required a Constitutional Amendment to extend the voting franchise to women (or to extend it to 18-year-olds, or to end the poll tax), then it should absolutely require an Amendment for the Federal government to require states to expand or modify the scope and terms of marriage, or even to enshrine marriage in civil law in the first place.

This is stated so broadly because this is not a point that pertains only to same-sex unions. If the Federal government wishes to create same-sex unions, or legalize polygamy, or establish uniform national standards for age of consent or consanguinity, or compel states to either grant or deny annulments and divorces under certain circumstances, or anything else of the kind, it may only do so if the States relinquish to the Federal government the general police powers reserved to them under our system of government (see Amendment X).

And the only legitimate way to do that is to pass a Constitutional Amendment.