Well, that didn’t take long

Bill Frist is proposing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. I figured we’d see plenty of “defense of marriage” bills. But a constitutional amendment? That’s cutting to the chase, alright.

Frist’s logic is comically confused. “And I’m thinking of, whether it’s prostitution or illegal commercial drug activity in the home, and to have the courts come in, in this zone of privacy, and begin to define it gives me some concern.” What he’s putatively concerned about is the removal of legal oversight, not the creation of it (but that’s really just a straw man). At least he doesn’t embarrass himself quite as much as Scalia, who fretted in his dissent that removing sodomy laws would pave the way for legalized bestiality, pederasty, and (whisper it) masturbation.

Frist continues that sodomy laws should be handled at the state level: “That’s where those decisions, with the local norms, the local mores, are being able to have their input in reflected.” But not marriage: that’s a matter for the whole country, uniformly.