There should be one standard and one only: what is best for the child.

Turning now to the elephant in the room, gay marriage, here’s some of what John Woo had to say in today’s Wall Street Journal. Woo supports gay marriage, he writes, as a policy matter. He trusts that the American people will come around on the topic. But as to winning in the courts, here’s his take:

Judge Walker did more than distort settled precedent and sweep aside centuries of practice. He short-circuited the Constitution’s democratic process for the resolution of moral disagreements.

A single judge, he elevated himself above the collective wisdom of millions of California voters and the considered judgment of state and federal officials. We all fondly hope that our government acts only to improve the welfare of society. But Judge Walker believes this job is best done not by elected legislators or executives, but by a single judge armed only with social science studies.

Judge Walker denied that Prop 8’s ban on gay marriage was rationally related to its goals of promoting more marriage and less divorce, as well as procreation and social stability. “Permitting same-sex couples to marry will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect the stability of opposite-sex marriages,” Judge Walker ruled. Prop 8, therefore, only represented irrational contempt against gays by the people of California.

Anyone who lives in this bluest of blue states might be forgiven for laughing out loud at the charge of bigotry. Does the charge apply also to Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton, who both opposed gay marriage during the 2008 campaign?

Woo goes on to observe that the grounds on which this and similar cases have been argued apply equally well to questions of prostitution, polygamy and pornography, or age limits on marriage and sex.

All laws based on morality would be unconstitutional.

He continues with the observation that in a federal system, new ideas can be tested and experience gained. Human reason is not the only way to size up an idea. One can also try it out and see how it goes.

Woo closes with this:

Prematurely nationalizing gay marriage—-either by banning it through constitutional amendment or allowing it by judicial fiat—-only promises a replay of the abortion drama.