Constitutional amendment is a radical, wrong response

The strong thread that runs through the Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights, is the duty of government to protect individual rights -- even, sometimes, over the perceived collective good.
Society, for instance, could more easily protect itself against criminals if police could force confessions from felons. The Constitution says no. Over more than two centuries, courts have upheld the clear language of the Fifth Amendment, finding that no person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself in a criminal case.
That's the way the Constitution is supposed to work. It is supposed to protect citizens against government intrusion in their private lives. It is designed to promote free speech. To prohibit government sponsorship of one religion over another. To give people the right to disagree peaceably.
At its core it is a document that tells us to live and let live in as much as it is possible to do so.
Which is why a constitutional amendment aimed at banning same-sex marriage is such a bad idea.
It is an amendment aimed at telling a certain class of people that the Constitution doesn't recognize their right to pursue happiness (yes, we know that's a phrase is from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution).
What it says
The amendment as proposed, and as endorsed by President Bush, would read: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."
President Bush says the amendment would not ban domestic unions. But that contention runs counter to the clear words of the amendment, which say that no law shall be construed to require that even the legal incidents of marriage be conferred on unmarried couples or groups.
That is a sweeping prohibition that would carve in the stone of the Constitution a declaration that the only relationships worthy of legal protection are those between one man and one woman, and only then if memorialized through marriage.
It would do exactly what its conservative handlers want to do, define those relationships that are worthy of respect in the narrow terms of religious fundamentalism. It would use no less than the Constitution of the United States to punish homosexuals and cohabitants for their perceived sins.
This is a mean-spirited, ugly amendment. It is not worthy of a great nation, a great people or a great Constitution.