The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Idiots

What is it about the Social Conservatives in this part of the world. Not only do they insist that there is some magical validity to their particular interpretation of scripture that others don't possess, but they seem to feel entirely justified in trying to write objectionable legislation based on that.

Case in point, the Republican party in the US Senate puts forth a bill proposing an amendment to the US Constitution to explicitly ban gay marriage. Personally, I can't think of a more pointless reason to amend the constitution of any country.

Perhaps I'm being a bit smug, but in the news this morning, it appears that such an amendment makes a lot of Republican Senators uneasy, and the proposed amendment likely won't even get as far as a debate, much less a vote. That's a very telling sign - like the Conservative Party in Canada, the Social Conservatives may have a lot of political clout, but they are definitely NOT the majority. I'm glad to see enough of the party's Senators are uneasy about such a mean-spirited approach to the issue that they are backing away from it. It's mildly reassurring that the narrow-minded, neanderthal view that spawned this legislative mistake is not held universally within the Republican party.

The topic aside, the debate over same-sex marriage is important. We do ourselves few favors if we ignore these discussions because they make us uncomfortable. These discussions need to take place in order for society to evolve. There will always be those who want to 'leap ahead', and those who want very badly to stay where they are. The debate is important in determining when society is ready to make a change. If the civil rights debate of the 1950's had taken place in the 1890's, the outcome would have been quite different.