(February 23, 2004) — Swarms of lovers crowded outside the San Francisco courthouse last week, anxious to receive a piece of paper making their matrimonial union official. Laws continue to change, but a central battle of the culture wars remains: should gay and lesbian couples be allowed to wed? The legalization of gay marriage could lead to utter chaos. If any union is considered legitimate if there is true love involved, who knows what could lie ahead? “Next on CNN, a woman marries her beloved pet.” Or, more realistically, could one person not fall in love with more than one other? Same-sex couples should not be granted marriage licenses because it would spur arguments for the support of polygamy or other obscure lifestyles in the name of fairness. If the boundaries are pushed in legalizing this type of union, who’s to say how far they’ll be pushed later? San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wrote to the county clerk that in order to uphold the California Constitution and its equal protection clause, he must support the issuance of marriage licenses “on a non-discriminatory basis, without regard to gender or sexual orientation.” Proposition 22, however, passed in 2000, provides that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid in California. So which should one follow—the age-old Constitution or the new law? The law, obviously. Times change and so do lifestyles. If enough Californians voted to pass the measure classifying marriage as a union between a man and a woman, the voice of the state should be upheld. After all, the voters are the ones who live in the state. Matters as serious and traditional as matrimony should not be taken to such a liberal level. Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and President George W. Bush are against legalizing same-sex marriages; the men we ourselves elected to run our state and nation must know what they’re talking about.