Senseless legislation is awesome

Now gay marriage can be twice as illegal!

The Alabama Senate on Thursday gave its final approval to a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and the measure will go before voters in the 2006 primaries. Aside from being discriminatory on its face and a craven attempt at scoring political points by attacking a minority group that can't really defend itself electorally, the proposed amendment makes no sense whatsoever from a legal standpoint. Gay marriage is already barred by a state statute, so the amendment is pointless.

"But what if those evil liberal judges strike down that law?" you might ask. First, if you're dealing with Alabama judges, most of whom are quite conservative, the chances of that are slim to none. Second, a judge can strike down a state constitutional amendment found to violate the U.S. Constitution just the same as a state statute that's in violation, so if a state measure is unconstitutional, labeling it "constitutional amendment" won't save it.

Then again, we're talking about the same legislators who this year passed a law that said they can't pass a law to change education funding, which they could repeal by passing a law to change education funding. Logic isn't these folks' strong suit.