The Oklahoma Legislature today approved placing a measure on the November ballot to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage. Never mind that Oklahoma already refuses to marry same-gender couple, already refuses to recognize same-gender marriages from other states (if any existed), and that if the US Supreme Court rules that such a ban violates the US Constitution that any state provision goes out the window, too.

The Democrats in the legislature obviously believed they had to get on the "right" (wrong) side of this issue to survive, but as Nathaniel Batchelder points out, the result will likely be the same as when the Democrats in Congress decided not to oppose war in Iraq:

Fundamentalists will now be spurred and goaded from pulpits across the Sooner state until the election to get registered to give God a landslide vote for this "Christian" legislation. The measure having been called for by President Bush, these additional hundreds of thousands of new voters will likely also vote for Bush and all his party's candidates.

Ironically, both houses of the Oklahoma Legislature are controlled by Democrat party majorities, so this vote could have been prevented. Committee chairs and leadership in the House and Senate are all Democrats. In the final hour, Speaker of the House Larry Adair had the authority to prevent this measure from coming to a vote (and Adair cannot run for office again under Oklahoma's term-limits restrictions). Much like a Governor's "pocket veto," Adair had his moment to prevent this travesty, but, alas, he passed.

To sum up the damage done, Oklahoma's majority Democrat Legislators not only passed legislation certain to result in adoption of an amendment to our state Constitution limiting the civil rights of a minority -- a measure threatening the separation of church and state -- they also committed political suicide. In November, Democrats will lose majorities in the House and Senate to this new crop of voters supporting the "moral agenda" of the Republican Party. Imagine the unbridled "moral agenda" they will pass as the majority in the Legislature.

Guys, if you're not going to be an opposition party, then sit down, shut up, and get out of the way for someone who will.