Congress should protect states' right to define marriage
To the casual observer, the Supreme Court seems to have given its stamp of approval to same-sex marriage, and both Congress and the states have been trumped in the matter.
The casual observer would be wrong, though. Setting marriage law and policy remains the prerogative of each state. Despite the recent Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor striking down a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, states can pass laws or amend their constitutions to protect the historical understanding of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, or they can change it.
Congress, on the other hand, never had the authority to establish marriage rules. When Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, it was not attempting to ban same-sex marriage, but to answer what would soon be a pressing question: How should federal agents interpret the word "marriage" where it appears in federal law and regulation? DOMA said it should be interpreted to mean the union of one man and one woman.
The Supreme Court struck down this definition..............
The State Marriage Defense Act of 2014, sponsored by Rep. Randy Weber, Texas Republican, is a simple, common-sense response. It tells the federal government to follow the law of a person's legal residence or domicile to determine marital status for the purposes of implementing federal law. If state law recognizes two people as married, federal law will recognize them as married; if state law does not recognize them as married, federal law will not recognize them as married.
SOURCE: FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL
http://www.frc.org/op-eds/congress-should-protect-states-right-to-define-marriage