Yes, and that's why they're making sure there is one now

"I might not be here," says the black man in an interracial relationship, "if there had been a popular vote about my rights."

Yep--exactly right. "Miscegenation," as it is so quaintly called, used to be illegal. Reports Mel Hoover, "My wife and I would hear the same arguments about interracial marriage that we're hearing now about same sex marriage." Then, in a fit of profound naivete, Hoover declares, "But [when interracial marriage was legalized], the nation didn't collapse. Religion didn't collapse. Marriage didn't collapse."

Ah, but if you are a racist, yes it did. The fact of a black man's ability to legally marry a white woman (because that's really what gets people) *is* the collapse, if you are a racist.

Now, those rockin' (free reg required) conservatives were asleep at the switch on the miscegenation thing. But they Won't Get Fooled Again. Precisely because of what Mel Hoover says--that miscegenation might well have been enshrined in the Constitution if given a chance--the people who would lay claim to the cultural fruits of all they despise are going to make good and goddamn sure that the human rights of any American who chooses to partner with someone of the same sex *are* put to a popular vote.

Great way to distract from certain issues in the Middle East, too, and the New Cold War being started by Dick Cheney.