Denying gay and lesbian couples in the nation’s capital the freedom to marry — a freedom they effectively earned in 2003 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, fully decriminalized same-gender sexual relationships — would clearly violate the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Tea Party-dominated GOP freshmen in the House of Representatives have on numerous occasions demonstrated an appalling ignorance of (even contempt for) the very Constitution they are bound by their oath of office to uphold, support, defend — and obey.

They already have unconstitutionally rammed through a “bill of attainder” aimed at punishing NPR by defunding the network, in retaliation for an NPR executive’s secretely taped remarks that were highly critical of Republicans in gerneral and Tea Party-backed conservative Republicans in particular. Bills of attainder are strictly prohibited by Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution. Fortunately, the measure has no chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Now the Republicans have hired a law firm to defend the constitutionally indefensible “Defense of Marriage Act.” It’s time to call out the Republicans in Congress as the homophobes they really are. As one who lived through the strugles of the African-american civil rights movement in the 1960s, these homophobes in Congress are no better than their racist predecessors who fought against the civil rights movement.