Congress is pretty much done with its activities for May 2009, and for U.S. Representative Paul Broun, the legislative character of the month is set. It’s not really news any more when Paul Broun introduces legislation to support an extremist ideological cause, but in the month of May, he’s introduced not just one, not just two, but three such bills.

.Two of these bills have to do with marriage. The consensus is building that it’s just fine for the institution of marriage to include unions between two people of the same sex. Americans who define marriage primarily as a relationship of mutual affection and responsibility have no problem incorporating homosexual couples into their idea of marriage. Paul Broun doesn’t see things that way, however. Congressman Broun’s vision of marriage seems to be that getting married is rote performance of a traditional social ritual which must never be significantly adapted to the individuals who are actually getting married.

Paul Broun doesn’t seem to care that heterosexual marriage has emerged unscathed in those states where same-sex marriage has been legalized. He still insists, contrary to all evidence, that same-sex marriage is a grave threat to the survival of heterosexual marriage. So, this month, Broun introduced a resolution declaring that the Congress disapproves of the District of Columbia’s move toward legalization of same-sex marriage. Actually, it seems that Congress does not disapprove of this development, because Broun wasn’t able to get even one cosponsor to sign on to this resolution.

That failure for Broun followed an earlier fizzle of homophobic legislation. In the second week of May, Broun introduced a resolution that would enshrine inequality in the Constitution of the United States, amending the Constitution to withdraw equal marriage rights from same-sex couples. Broun only got a small fraction of the support needed to add such an amendment into the Constitution. Along the way, Broun seemed to be acknowledging that the Constitution currently does guarantee equal marriage rights to homosexual and heterosexual couples alike.

The kicker was Representative Broun’s introduction of a resolution calling upon President Obama to declare 2010 to be the National Year of the Bible. Only a small cadre was willing to support Broun on this resolution. The rest of Congress regarded the resolution as a poorly-conceived eccentricity.

Usually, when there is a National Year of some sort declared, the timing is important. There’s a particular issue, typically, that is of growing importance, to merit a National Year. But, what is there about 2010 in particular that would make it a year of the Bible, more than any other year?

The incoherence of Broun’s resolution was increased by his reference, in the resolution, to the fact that Ronald Reagan declared 1983 to be the National year of the Bible. If 1983 was the National year of the Bible, how could 2010 also be the National year of the Bible? 1983 preceded a decades-long decline in Christianity. If Ronald Reagan’s National year of the Bible didn’t do the trick of pumping up Christianity, then what makes Paul Broun think it would work in 2010?

If he were a touch more reflective, Representative Broun might see that efforts to mix church and state in defiance of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights doesn’t help Christianity at all, but turns people off, leading them to look for alternatives to following the Bible.