by Ginger Voight

Created on: May 29, 2008

Freedom.

Liberty.

Justice. For all.

These are the rights we enjoy as Americans.

At least most of us.

Even though these are things every American can recite with hands folded over hearts in front of a flag, there is a faction of the country whose freedoms - whose equality - have yet to fully realize. Why? Because another group of Americans has decided it is their moral barometer alone that should dictate the perimeters of the rights of someone else.

Someone they don't know. Someone whose choices ultimately do not affect them. It is an unapologetic oppression that flies in the face of the very freedom this country was founded upon.

In America's not so distant and shameful past, other minorities suffered the same kinds of injustices. It seems unthinkable now that black men and women were sold into slavery; treated as property because of the color of their skin.

Heroes would rise up against this atrocity. And despite vehement opposition, these heroes fought for the principles of our great nation; declaring that all men were created equal. No one was any greater than the other, and no one's rights voided the rights of someone else.

This change was hard won. Despite being given the right to vote, black men would experience many setbacks from actually exercising their rights due to legal loopholes. Their oppressors? Fellow Americans who felt that their own moral code circumvented the rights of others.

Sound familiar?

By the late 1950s, it was still illegal for a white person and a person of color to marry.

Love was legislated.

It had nothing to do with public safety, such as laws that serve our country best are.

One group oppressed another group for one simple reason: it made them uncomfortable to see a group of people they ultimately feared do something beyond their control.

What does this impromptu history lesson have to do with gay marriage?

Everything.

Our country was built upon the strength of the people - their diversity, courage and conviction. It was a government for the people, of the people and by the people... to serve *the people*.

I don't have to agree with another person's point of view to ensure their right to say it. That is something guaranteed by the very same Constitution that protects *my* free speech. My rights do not trump theirs.

They're the same rights.

We are free to pursue our own paths to happiness without the government's interference. If the President is Catholic, we can be Baptist - or have no religion at all. Likewise, a president could be atheist without

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