ANOTHER PUSH FOR A MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

A new petition from religious leaders calls for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. This time, the Catholics are on board:

About 50 prominent religious leaders, including seven Roman Catholic cardinals and about a half-dozen archbishops, have signed a petition in support of a constitutional amendment blocking same-sex marriage.

Organizers of the petition said it was in part an effort to revive the groundswell of opposition to same-sex marriage that helped bring many conservative voters to the polls in some pivotal states in 2004. The signers include many influential evangelical Protestants, a few rabbis and an official of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But both the organizers and gay rights groups said what was striking about the petition was the direct involvement by high-ranking Roman Catholic officials, including 16 bishops. Although the church has long opposed same-sex unions, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had previously endorsed the idea of a constitutional amendment banning such unions, it was evangelical Protestants who generally led the charge when the amendment was debated in 2004.

"The personal involvement of bishops and cardinals is significantly greater this time than in 2004," said Patrick Korten, a spokesman for the Knights of Columbus, a lay Catholic group.

The Catholic bishops and many of the other religious leaders involved have pledged to distribute postcards for their congregants to send to their senators urging support for the amendment. The Knights of Columbus is distributing 10 million postcards to Catholic churches.

I'm generally against the constitutional amendment crazes that blow through from time to time (remember flag burning?), but a simple statement defining marriage would be an appropriate step while leaving the implementation to states. I confess that I still have problems with the desire to nationalize every issue.

For some reason I was not contacted about being an initial signee of the petition. Hmmm, I was out of town, maybe they just weren't able to reach me...