Passions drive debate on gay marriage off course

[SheBop]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=742&e=1&u=/usatoday/20040714/cm_usatoday/passionsdrivedebateongaymarriageoffcourse



Excerpts:

From Oregon to Georgia to Washington, D.C., grandstanding legislators are turning to the nuclear weapon of politics - rewriting the U.S. and state constitutions - to prohibit marriages between same-sex couples.

Perhaps all of this hyperventilating is unavoidable. Issues that mix faith, family and individual rights invite an emotional response and just about always get one. But reaching first to fiddle with the fundamental governing documents of states and the nation is just plain irresponsible.

By contrast, most emotion-driven campaigns to prescribe social behavior in the Constitution have failed. Prohibition of alcohol in 1919 was so divisive, it was repealed in 1933. Recent efforts to ban abortion and flag burning and restore prayer in the classroom haven't even gotten out of Congress.