Religious right wants to ban gay marriage via "Constitutional Convention"

Since the Senate's efforts to ban gay marriage failed, the religious right is considering calling a "Constitutional Convention" to make it happen. In order to call a Constitutional Convention (an obscure provision of Article 5 that allows amendments to the Constitution without congressional approval), backers would have to persuade two-thirds (34) of U.S. state legislatures to support it.

Among the backers are the Family Research Council (surprise!) and leaders of the Catholic, Protestant, and Mormon churches (surprise again!).

Even though the chances of getting 34 states to go along with the idea are very slim, right-wing commentator Bob Novak exults, "If such a convention were to pass a marriage amendment, we estimate that 28 states would easily ratify it. Another eight states may do so only after a protracted and bloody political fight (which could span an election cycle). That leaves supporters with two more states to go to reach the threshold of 38 (three-fourths), and only the most difficult ground to fight on--states such as Maine, Rhode Island, Oregon and Nevada are probably not ideal places to win such a fight, although not all would be unwinnable."

Novak's homophobic fantasies aside, a Constitutional Convention is nonpartisan, which means it would also allow liberals to write their own amendments. So how about an amendment that bans asinine amendments?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/15/constitutional-convention-gay-marriage/