Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Congress has adjourned for the holidays, but here's something three senators thought just couldn't wait until the next session: yesterday they introduced legislation calling for a constitutional ban on gay marriage. (Members of the House introduced their bill last Friday.)

A lot of outraged right-wingers think permitting gay marriage will lead to the legalization of a lot of other forms of marriage. I say we should throw them a bone. Our side should draft a constitutional amendment specifically banning all the odd types of marriage right-wingers fear: polygamy, incestuous marriage, pedophile marriage, marriage between humans and animals, between living humans and corpses, between people and inanimate objects -- whatever right-wingers think could follow if gay marriage is allowed.

We should actively fight for such an amendment. Doing so would take the "slippery slope" argument away from the right; the contested ground would be gay marriage and only gay marriage.

Of course, the right would never go along with such an amendment. The right needs to spread the fear that allowing gay marriage will lead to men marrying their household pets. That's why we should draft this amendment and make it part of the agenda.

(UPDATE: Here's a story on the anti-gay-marriage amendment from the right-wing/Moonie Washington Times. I can't help noticing that the WashTimes doesn't call it gay marriage, but rather gay "marriage," with scare quotes around the latter word. Given the fact that other right-wing publications and Web sites always put quotes around "gay," shouldn't the WashTimes, if it wants to be really right-wing PC, refer to "gay" "marriage"?)

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