Erin Manning sends this excellent Ryan T. Anderson analysis of the Sixth Circuit’s ruling this week upholding gay marriage bans in the states under its jurisdiction. Here’s a link to the text of the decision itself. Look at this shocking passage from the ruling:

A dose of humility makes us hesitant to condemn as unconstitutionally irrational a view of marriage shared not long ago by every society in the world, shared by most, if not all, of our ancestors, and shared still today by a significant number of the states.

Good lord, federal judges, humble? Now I’ve seen it all.

Here is the best part of the ruling, from a traditionalist point of view. Note that the ruling does not say states may not legalize gay marriage; it only says that there is nothing in the Constitution that mandates it. Read:

How can we say that the voters acted irrationally for sticking with the seen benefits of thousands of years of adherence to the traditional definition of marriage in the face of one year of experience with a new definition of marriage? A state still assessing how this has worked, whether in 2004 or 2014, is not showing irrationality, just a sense of stability and an interest in seeing how the new definition has worked elsewhere. Even today, the only thing anyone knows for sure about the long-term impact of redefining marriage is that they do not know. A Burkean sense of caution does not violate the 14th Amendment, least of all when measured by a timeline less than a dozen years long and when assessed by a system of government designed to foster step-by-step,  not sudden winner-take-all, innovations to policy problems.

Again: judicial humility.

The court goes on to say that if it’s constitutionally irrational to define marriage as one man plus one woman, then it is also constitutionally irrational to exclude plural arrangements from the definition of marriage. Again, do not miss the point: the court does not forbid states from legalizing plural marriages, only that there is no constitutional mandate to do so. If, however, there is a constitutional mandate to legalize same-sex marriage, then, say the justices, it is hard to see why that mandate doesn’t also apply to people seeking to have their plural arrangements recognized by the state as marriage.

Read Anderson’s entire analysis. There’s more to the opinion, including an explanation of why, in the eyes of the court majority, same-sex marriage is not like interracial marriage.

So, we are no doubt headed for the Supreme Court to get this sorted once and for all. Good. I think we are all ready for that to happen.