The issue of same-sex marriages has, in recent years, come to the forefront of the political arena. There are few people in American society who don’t have an opinion on the issue.

Some people believe these relationships are legitimate ones and should be allowed to be legally; others believe that these unions are unnatural and gays and lesbians should not enjoy the privileges of couples married under the “man and woman” definition of marriage.

Gays and lesbians are trying to recruit support by painting this issue to look like the civil rights battle of our time. On Web sites such as hatecrime.org, Coretta Scott King — Martin Luther King Jr’s widow — makes mention of these supposed similarities in many of her speeches.

They are attempting to make links between the human rights issues of pre-1960s America and a question of immorality. The Web site gaydemographics.org estimates that 0.97 percent of the U.S. population classifies as a same-sex couple. The question about the legitimacy under the law remains.

This minority should not be recognized under the law. We as citizens have no right to tell gays and lesbians how to live their life and with whom, but we have every right to express our disapproval their lifestyle.

The expression of disapproval should be in the form of a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union between man and woman. In the US, 76.5 percent of the population identifies with the Christian religion according to adherents.com, which uses the Bible for the source of its teachings. The Bible forbids the gay lifestyle in the book of Leviticus (18:22), where it states: “Do not lie with a man as a man lies with a woman; this is detestable.”

Representing this in the law would not be an infringement on the separation of church and state, because the law should not read to ban the practice of homosexuality, rather it should define what will be acceptable unions.

Whether a constitutional amendment written in favor of either side of the controversy is necessary or not is up to the politicians and lawyers.

Many conservative Christian groups don’t support the possibility of legal recognition of gay relationships from a religious standpoint; gay rights advocates view the issue as one the government should let stand. Either way, this is not the “civil rights battle” of our time, it is simply a legislative issue that must be addressed. If people feel so strongly about the issue, maybe they should use their clever writing skills to correspond with their legislators, and stop citing their causes on rainbow littered bumper stickers.

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Gay marriage

The Legislature in Kansas voted yesterday to enact a referendum on a gay-marriage ban. The referendum, which passed 86-37, will be left up to voters in Kansas to decide on April 5.

If voters approve, the gay-

marriage ban will be written into the Kansas Constitution as an amendment.