Hatch Ignorant of History

In this wire story on the Federal Marriage Amendment -- the constitutional amendment going down to defeat in the Senate this morning, which would ban marriage between two people of the same sex -- we hear: "'I don't know of a more important debate in our country's history,' said Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican.

Orrin, here's a few:

• Slavery.
  
• Whether women are humans or property, and therefore have human rights, like the right to vote.
  
• Wars. Like, whether or not sending our best young people off to die by the hundreds -- or hundreds of thousands, like Vietnam -- is justified. I think that's a pretty important debate.
  
• The color of the tapestries in the Senate chambers.
  

So, there's four.

The hyperbole is astronomical.