Gone with the wind! For 30 or 40 years, judges have been flattering themselves that their own acute readings of social necessity and paradigms exceeded those of lesser folk. A moment ago, I mentioned the media. The media's consent is instrumental in matters like the pending overthrow of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. The media's fascination with gay rights has invested the quest for such rights with an authority it never before enjoyed. Judges can't help but notice such things.

 And that's where we are today: trying halfheartedly (if we're talking about Congress) to let the people's will prevail over that of judges with respect to marriage. But there isn't the kind of unanimity you would expect on this question, perhaps because people have grown used to judges running their lives and consequently put little stock in those constitutional amendments (anti-busing, pro-school prayer, anti-abortion, anti-flag burning, etc.) that congressmen talk about but never seem to pass.

 Granted, the constitutional amendment process is arduous and complex. Any amendment Congress really wants requires two-thirds votes in both houses and ratification by three-fourths of the states. That can be a tall order, especially in the matter of an evolving paradigm. When you're being forward-kicked by men and women in judicial robes, the temptation is to suppose they can't be altogether mischievous in their assumptions.

 Well, they are in the case of marriage: an institution older than the Constitution and never before considered open-ended except maybe in Las Vegas. The judges are as wrong as can be, but setting them right -- that's a challenge possibly beyond our present representatives. When the harm and gross stupidity of the attack on marriage becomes more apparent -- that may be when we'll finally do something, if it isn't too late.