Do we really need to ban same-sex marriage in the constitution? I'm trying to sort this all out because my state, along with 10 others this year, will include a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution against same-sex marriage. In addition, the issue is a hot one in nearly all the congressional campaigns and has trickled down to some state and local battles as well.

But frankly, it just didn't seem to matter to me much before yesterday.

First of all there are already laws on the books against gay marriage here, just as there are provisions against incest, polygamy and underage marriage.

Secondly, I was having a hard time drumming up any conviction on an issue where the most vocal and visible supporters and opponents are clearly the weirdest people in America (television Christians and gay and lesbian celebrities).

But the real reason I think I was confused was because of the din of same-sex marriage rhetoric and the noise of churches fighting among themselves about ordaining homosexuals. That had completely drowned out something that in my mind had been relegated to an old Sunday School classroom where a flannel graph depicts Adam and Eve with their private parts cleverly concealed behind leaves — God's design.

"If the details of Genesis 1-11 are not true and you can't accept them as literal history, then what is marriage," Answers in Genesis founder and president, Ken Ham, told me yesterday. "Marriage could be whatever you make it to be. If you can't use the Bible," he said, "then it's just majority opinion."

Recent polls show Americans still find traditional marriage preferable. But who's to say whether they want to constitutionalize that preference or whether they, like me, are thinking, "What does it matter?"

Rebecca Barnes, editor

Even Ham recognizes, that while same-sex marriage clearly violates the design God intended for his creation, the legal ramifications of condoning or condemning it may do little to stem the tide of moral decline in America.

He says he will vote for the constitutional amendment in his state. "As a Christian I have to," he says. "But in the long run, legislating marriage is not necessarily going to work. Ultimately, you can't legislate morality." He said a Christian worldview can be reflected in a country's laws, but he said the fact that the Bible is true can't be legislated. "That's a heart thing."

There's another reason I don't feel right voting to ban same-sex marriage constitutionally; hypocrisy. When the divorce statistics remain the same for couples both in and outside of the church and when churches are fighting among their own denominations over appointing gay clergy, it doesn't seem as though Christians have much of a moral high ground to stand upon. But then, we never did. We only have the Bible, which points out not only where other people are wrong, but where we are wrong as well. So the question becomes: Do we have a right to tell people they're wrong?

Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor of Moody Church in Chicago and author of "The Truth About Same-Sex Marriage," calls for action from the church. He counters the argument that the church has no right to dictate its beliefs to the government by writing, "The church has every right to inform and influence laws and governmental policies — as do business, education, media, and various other bodies that seek a place in the public square."

I remember once when I was a kid out shopping with my mother and sister. My sister had to go to the bathroom. So we traipsed to the back of the store and my mother directed my sister to go on into the restroom and we would wait for her.

"But that's a public restroom," my sister said in horror. "We're Christians."

Christians are called to be in the world, not of the world. Some interpret that to be out of the world. But I think Lutzer is right. We live here, too.

Besides, it's a schizophrenic notion to think a person can cordon off their lives into categories. I can't separate being Christian from being a mother, wife, registered voter, motorist on the highway, consumer, writer, etc. In the same say I think it's a false notion to think people are gay or straight or black or white or recovering alcoholics or evangelical Christians or Catholics or liberals or conservatives.

It's simpler than all that. God created people male and female (Gen. 1:27). That's it. Everything else we become is only part of us or a descriptor of us or how we act. And I think homosexuality is an action rather than an identity.

So that's why I'm voting for the marriage amendment. I don't think gay people should marry because I don't believe in gay people. God didn't create gay people. He created people, male and female. If people choose to live contrary to God's design not just in homosexuality but in anything, their identity doesn't change. It remains the same it has always been -- a sinner. I am a sinner, too, but I don't find my identity in my sin. I find my identity in Christ who freed me.

I want my country's laws to reflect that freedom. Same-sex marriage binds people in their sin. I want people to be free. Of course that's my Christian view. There are other views we could hold as Americans, but I believe the Bible. I believe its truth can free people, male and female.

Freedom is what America and Christianity have in common.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery," (Gal. 5:1).