Q:Why did the chicken cross the road? A:Because it was free to do so.

 I am a firm believer in marriage.

When I was growing up, I didn’t always agree with my father and his choices, but the sterling central pillar of his character that I have always unfailingly admired, even at the youngest of ages, was and is his fierce, undying love for my mother.

It is, at times, clumsily applied, in my opinion. But underneath the bluster and frustration, NOBODY can honestly question my father’s powerful devotion to my mother.

I hope my children can say the same for me. I love Teresa so widely, narrowly, top to bottom and inside and out that it has consumed me, refined me and defined me. I can’t imagine life without her. Something wild, weird, delightful or terrible happens to me? It is she with whom I first want to share the story as soon as possible. Even better are the adventures we experience together, which we can call up to each other with little more than a glance across a crowded room. I delight in those times when she speaks what was just on the tip of my tongue, or when we don’t have to speak at all. She hurts, I hurt. She feels joy, I soar, too. She advises, I weigh her words carefully (okay, usually I object and stonewall, and then crawl off to my cave to somehow convert her clear thinking to my idea, but you all know what I mean). I am a better, more complete and more fully realized human being for her inexplicable decision to spend her life with mine, side by side and arm in arm, officially, personally, publicly and faithfully united.

I wish everyone who longed for such a relationship could have it. I look for that potential in every couple I counsel for marriage. What is your strength together? What is that go-to default setting between you that no crisis can touch? Identify it. Nurture it. Celebrate it. Guard it with your LIVES!

This is what I find so heart-breaking about the current marriage rights debate. Some would try to turn this whole Chik-fil-A tempest into some battle for free speech. Somehow, Dan Cathy’s right to say as he pleases is threatened by the millions who recoil from his pronouncements and actions, and from the corporation he owns and the product he sells to fund his political efforts?

Wait. Please.

One side in this battle is fighting for the right of individuals to find and strive to fully live in the joy I have described above with the legal recognition of the state, and the full blessing and support of their faith communities. The other side is trying to permanently legislate the state-enforced denial of that pursuit of happiness for an entire sub-group of Americans, including stepping between this pastor and members of his flock. 

Being a citizen of “the land of the free and the home of the brave” comes with certain responsibilities. Chief among them is to trust that others can make their own way in the world without you or me forcing complete personal public and private adherence to the particulars of our own world view. If what you want for your life does not injure others, I have no grounds for preventing you pursuing it, even if I find it repulsive or at odds with my morality. 

If you or I object to gay marriage, we should neither enter into one nor attend a church that performs such ceremonies. I don’t cry foul to any of my friends, colleagues or relatives who disagree with gay marriage as long as they leave it at that. What we should not do is endeavor to influence elected officials to shut down another's equal protection and reasonable rights.

This is America, for God’s sake.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. -- The Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the Constitution of the United States