Social Issues Challenge State-Federal Relationship By Jake
Grovum, Staff Writer When the Supreme Court convenes to hear
same-sex marriage arguments this spring, it will confront a
landmark civil rights case with societal and constitutional
implications that could reverberate for years to come. But
underlying the questions at stake will be even more far-reaching
issues, ones that reflect the evolving relationships between
Washington and the states and among the states themselves. In
judging the rights of individuals to marry, the court could also
wade into the very concept of states’ rights, and what that idea
means for a federal government increasingly under siege by state
lawmakers across the country. Nationwide, states have been
bounding ahead of — and directly challenging — the federal
government with growing tenacity, setting up a collision course
with Washington on issues from same-sex marriage and drug policy
to immigration and abortion. Marriage has provided the most
high-profile arguments thus far. Bu