Are moral judgments against homosexual behavior anything more than the expressions of emotional bias or narrow religious beliefs?  Two recent and highly divisive political decisions, one in the U.S. and the other in the U.K., would have us believe they are not.  The first, of course, is the Obama administration’s recent announcement that it thinks that the federal law known as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional and consequently that it will no longer defend the law in court.  DOMA was passed in 1996 in response to early political initiatives to legalize same-sex marriage.  The law defines the term “marriage” for use throughout the entire body of federal law as a “legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and the term “spouse” as “only a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”  The law also protects states from being legally forced to recognize as a marriage a same-sex relationship given legal recognition as a marriage in another state.  DOMA passed both houses of Congress by huge majorities and was signed by President Bill Clinton.  Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking on behalf of the Obama administration, harshly criticized the “moral disapproval” of homosexual lifestyles expressed by those who passed the law saying it reflected “stereotype-based thinking and animus.”  Holder also said he doubted whether “reasonable arguments” could be made in defense of DOMA.

Here I examine Charles J. Reid, Jr’s “Marriage: Its Relationship to Religion, Law, and the State,” Douglas Laycock’s “Afterword,” and offer final comments.

I summarized pp. 157-176 of Reid’s chapter in Part I of this review; in them he showed that traditionally in Western civilization and particularly in Anglo-American history marriage was regarded as “a divine institution.” Here I focus on the section “Marriage and the State” (176-187) and on his “Conclusion” (187-188).