Danforth: gay marriage amendment silly

Former Republican Sen. John Danforth of Missouri is criticizing his party on their support of the constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. He called it the latest example of how the GOP is being controlled by right-wing evangelicals.

Danforth, a Missouri Republican and an Episcopal priest, made the comments in a speech Saturday night to the Log Cabin Republicans, which support gay rights. He said history has shown that attempts to regulate human behavior with constitutional amendments are misguided.

"Once before, the Constitution was amended to try to deal with matters of human behavior; that was prohibition. That was such a flop that that was repealed 13 years later," Danforth said.

Referring to the marriage amendment, he added that perhaps at some point in history there was a constitutional amendment proposed that was "sillier than this one, but I don't know of one."