Two myths about the marriage amendment

It was a ban on gay marriage:

Of course it wasn't. It was a codification of the precedent that marriage is only a heterosexual union.

It would be the first time the Constitution was used to take away rights from a group of people:

Prohibition ring a bell? How about the amendment to disallow more than two Presidential terms? Rights are arbitrary and never self-evident, no matter how much we'd like to believe that beautiful turn of phrase. Each society decides what rights to grant its citizens, and the US has done a better job than most at steadily recognizing expanding and equal rights.

That being said, let's not delude ourselves in defending against an absurdist sop to a hardliner political base. Although, the Dems do deserve credit for combatting nonsense with nonsense.