Get Your Grimy Little Mitt Off MY Constitution

I'm no student of government, law and social policy. I'm about as far from a "wonk" as one can get, although I love the word and would like somehow to apply it to myself. (Wildflower wonk ?) But isn't one of the chief bits of rightist republican dogma the states rights thingy ? I mean weren't we reminded during the recent Orgiastic Reagan Obsequies of one of the Gipper's first political speeches, some deeply coded gem delivered in the deepest bowels of the south, that extolled "states rights" AKA the "right to racial segregation" ?

Yet when it comes to marriage rights, the prospect of individual states deciding for themselves to move into a 21st century of tolerance and freedom, sends the same folks into a dither about the the "confusion" that will result. And sends them scuttling to the federal Constitution, into which they propose to ram some rights-denying, homophobia-enshrining, church-and-state-separation defying nonsense.

My fellow physician, the loathsome cat-murdering thoracic surgeon and gay basher Dr Frist, currently Senate majority leader, has decided that there's no time like the present for Constitution desecrating. And, of course, "it's not political."

So The Mitthead's going to Washington. To testify before the Judiciary committee. And, again, it's not "political," as his various highly remunerated, unsavory (homage due here to that master of complex political epithets, RiAF) mouthpieces have been reminding us. The Mitthead has no aspirations whatsoever toward the White House. Uh huh. Right.

It's to prevent confusion.

Is "prevent confusion" going to become the new right wing code word for legislating homophobic bigotry ?

Viz: "He will argue that, even if gay marriage is confined to Massachusetts residents, some of those married couples will eventually relocate and test the limits of their rights in other states, and the issue will no longer be confined to Massachusetts. He is expected to call for a federal constitutional amendment as the only way to avoid that confusion nationally."

And, for that matter, doesn't the constitution already contain confusion-avoiding language that guarantees all (that's A-L-L) citizens equal protection under the law ? And some thingy about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ? So wouldn't a clause prohibiting same sex marriage make the document internally self-contradictory ?

Myself, I think it's time for the Mitthead to do the only honorable thing. Follow his Connecticut colleague Governor Rowland's example and resign in disgrace.