I’m still seething. Not the prettiest picture in the world. The 233 members of the U.S. House of Representatives who voted for the Marriage Protection Act sent a message: they’re so scared of gays being able to marry they’re willing to gut the Constitution to prevent it. With priorities so skewed, should they be trusted with voting even on less weighty matters, like National Bagel Day?

The bill, which heads next to the Senate, bars federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from hearing challenges to parts of the Defense of Marriage Act. Each time I read that the courts are forbidden from hearing challenges, I picture a man standing over robe-clad figures, yelling, “Fingers in your ears!”

Naturally I’m ticked off because I’m gay. What a ludicrous idea that marriage has to be “protected” and “defended” from me, like I’m some lecherous beast and marriage is a virgin in a chastity belt with a flimsy lock.

But I’m just as upset due to my warm, maternal feelings for the Constitution. Back in sixth grade I learned about the three branches of government, and the notion that checks and balances kept each one from becoming too big for its britches. The idea impressed me then, and it still does.

I think Congress needs to return to sixth grade.

“The entire system of checks and balances depends on an independent federal judiciary that ensures that laws passed by Congress are constitutional,” said Christopher Anders of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Okay, forget returning to school. Congressmen swore an oath to protect the Constitution. Given their attack on checks and balances, I suggest we check to see if they’re balanced.

This is a desperate, extreme act taken out of the fear that a judge will make states recognize Massachusetts’ marriages. In other words, we don’t like what you may say, so we’ll make sure you never get the chance. We’re so clever it’s scary.

Former Senator Jesse Helms often tried the court-stripping route to get his way on abortion, school prayer and so forth. It never worked. In fact, according to law professor Chai Feldblum, Congress last passed a law putting the kibosh on the Supreme Court’s ability to hear a constitutional challenge in a year we all remember like it was yesterday – 1868.

Messing with the separation of powers like this has obviously been as popular as Yassar Arafat at a Seder. Many Congressmen who voted for the Marriage Protection Act must have felt twinges – or great penetrating stabs – of doubt about their aye vote. But knowing the Senate is expected to blow a raspberry at the act, House members could vote against gays, and go home to their constituents and say they did their level best to confine matrimony to those who know what to do with a penis.

The New York Times warned of the act, “This radical approach would allow Congress to revoke the courts’ ability to guard constitutional freedoms of all kinds. And although gays are the subject of this bill, other minority groups could easily find themselves the target of future ones.”

I hate to be standoffish, but it would be better for the Constitution if no other minority group joined us. Although several groups together could certainly belt out a rousing chant like, “Against us they hold grudges, so they’ve handcuffed the judges!”

Between first the Federal Marriage Amendment and then the Marriage Protection Act, it’s plain that many on Capitol Hill are hot to use or abuse the Constitution just to keep us away from marriage. Funny that our role is to stand up for the status quo, to defend the Constitution. And baseball, apple pie and two mothers.