Dear George,

It looks to me as though Gov. Dean's position on the states' right to define legal marriage is substantively different from President Bush's. Bush would support a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the formal, legal union between a man and a woman. Dean, I would suppose, would not: because it is a Federal definition.

Amending the Constitution is another kind of decision for the polity to make, and a grave one.

I have come to think that Dean's position on this and other matters involving choice at the state level, such as gun laws, is not so much a matter of "states' rights," that old constitutional issue based in the defense of slavery, as it is respect for community decision-making.

I would further suggest that this difference between the two men goes much deeper, and is grounded in Dean's respect for the American polity, as contrasted to Bush's fundamentalist, Republican belief that property owners are the 'real' Americans, and that the state's reason is to serve their interests. Bush is the heir of the dreadful Thatcher dictum, "There is no society, there are only individuals." What havoc that view of the world has wrought.

We must think these issues through carefully, being skeptical of superficial similarities (and even differences), and look for underlying principles. I think -- and hope -- I have read Dean correctly.

Yours,

Katherine McNamara (electronic mail, December 18, 2003)