It's not 'gay marriage amendment' either

I warned yesterday that the right wing is moving to package the constitutional amendment on gay marriage as the Defense of Marriage Amendment, when it is nothing of the kind. If your heterosexual marriage is threatened by gay people having any legal rights, your marriage is in trouble anyway.

Ingrid Ankerson says that even calling it the "gay marriage amendment" is inaccurate, and she's right. Writing on the No on the Amendment blog, she says:

It is not the "Defense of Marriage" amendment.

It is also not the “marriage amendment” or even a “gay marriage” amendment. Calling it any of these does not sufficiently describe just what this amendment is or what it would do. It would permanently ban marriage for lesbian and gay couples, yes. But it would also ban civil unions or other protections that are substantially similar to marriage.

Instead we should—we must—refer to the amendment as the “ban on civil unions and marriage.”

It doesn’t make for a pretty acronym (quite the contrary), but it does get the point across. This amendment would ban something. And it won’t just ban marriage.

It would also ban civil unions.

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Journal Sentinel columnist Jim Stingl, fresh from seeing "Brokeback Mountain" over the holidays, says:

Don't buy that nonsense about any of this being a defense of traditional marriage. I'm so sure that gays pose no threat to my marriage that I gave my wife tickets to "Naked Boys Singing" as a wedding anniversary gift.

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Eye on Wisconsin has another idea on how to protect marriage: Ban fundamentalist weddings.