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I always have to stop and ask myself why in the face of our nation's many real and pressing problems we waste so much time worrying about the issue of gay marriage. In a "free" country, how is the decision to love and make a life with someone of the same sex even an issue for the political leaders of our government? If this country is free, shouldn't we be able to marry whomsoever we please regardless of the religious or moral objections of a select few?

One would think so, but that doesn't seem to be how things work. To me, the problem with lawmakers fighting to stop gay marriage is that it's personal; it is part of their political agenda only to the extent that it gets them votes or their own religious morality makes them believe their way is the only way. Imposing your own religious and moral beliefs on others should not be part of American governing, but it is and until such things are abolished, we will not ever truly be a "free country".

When, in 2003, the Supreme Court abolished the legal ban on anal and oral sex, Republican Bill Frist, Tennessee State Senator and former Senate Majority Leader, was quoted as saying, "the Supreme Court's decision last week on gay sex threatens to make the American home a place where criminality is condoned." In Senator Frist's view, the law made private relations between consenting adult males legal - a travesty, in his opinion when, in fact, the Supreme Court made no so such claim. The law scratched from the books was an age-old one that did not, anywhere in its text, apply to homosexual rather than heterosexual persons. In fact, the law covered consenting adults of all sexual preferences engaging in "anal and oral sex". However, it had been used to arrest and prosecute otherwise innocent persons for the "crime" of being different in this case, homosexual. This abuse and manipulation of said law was the Supreme Court's reason for nixing it, but apparently lawmakers like Sen. Frist would have preferred to continue bending the law and punishing those that don't live up to their strict moral code.

It's daunting to realize that Sen. Frist, and those like him, honestly believe and would use their powers to ensure - that being homosexual or participating in private, sexual acts as consenting adults is in any way, shape, or form "criminal" and should be punished by law.

Such views are the bread and butter of the controversy surrounding gay marriage in this country. Not only do lawmakers believe gay people should not be allowed

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