Some have said that same-sex marriage is just a different expression of the same marriage institution we have always known, and that it can exist in Minnesota law along-side traditional marriage.

That is what gay marriage activists want people to think. What’s at stake are two competing definitions of marriage. The union of any two people regardless of gender, versus the collective understanding of virtually every nation throughout recorded history, marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Under the law, one definition of marriage would not exist alongside the other. But in fact, marriage as we know it would be replaced by genderless “marriage,” which is really not marriage all, but a system of friendship certificates or love licenses.

The evidence is there for anyone to see. Minnesota House File 1710 is just one example of the many attempts that have been and are currently being made to redefine marriage into a system of genderless domestic partnerships.

As an article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy observed, “… once the judiciary or legislature adopts ‘the union of any two persons’ as the legal definition of civil marriage, that conception becomes the sole definitional basis for the only law-sanctioned marriage that any couple can enter, whether same-sex or man-woman.

“Therefore, legally sanctioned genderless marriage, rather than peacefully coexisting with the contemporary man-woman marriage institution actually displaces and replaces it.”

In fact, it will be forced on everyone — whether you agree with it or not. The new law will allow no room for those people — a strong majority of Minnesotans — who for personal, ethnic, moral or religious reasons cannot agree with the new definition.

Legal experts on both sides of the issue warn of a “sea change” of litigation against individuals, small business and religious organizations who reject the radical remaking of marriage. And it’s already begun in other states.

For example, innkeepers have been sued for refusing to allow a same-sex reception in their bed & breakfast. Wedding photographers who do not wish to be involved in a same-sex wedding have been fined and sued.

Religious groups like Catholic Charities in Boston, Washington, D.C. and Illinois have been forced to close their charitable adoption agencies because they believe children deserve a mother and a father and their religious beliefs prohibit adopting children to same-sex couples. The Ocean Grove Methodist Church in New Jersey lost part of its state tax exemption for refusing to make its facilities available for same-sex unions.

And, whenever schools educate children about marriage, they will have no choice but to teach this new definition. In Massachusetts, second graders were taught about gay marriage in class. The courts ruled that parents had no right to prior notice, or to opt their children out of the class. The author of “Who’s in a Family?” a book about gay relationships used with first graders in public schools says, “The whole purpose of the book was to get the subject out into the minds and the awareness of children before they are old enough to have been convinced there’s another way of looking at life.”

It’s even worse in Canada where the Canadian Ministry of Education is poised to take away the rights of home and private schools by banning them from teaching marriage is between one man and one woman!

Perhaps the most troubling aspect is the law will consider those who do not condone same-sex marriage to be what Joe Solomonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign called the legal equivalent of “outright bigots.”

In contrast to redefining marriage, which will expand government and erode liberty, the Marriage Protection Amendment doesn’t change anything. Nor will it pit child against parent, parent against school, or threaten rights of conscience. It simply preserves our historic and traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Additionally, passage of the amendment ensures that the people of Minnesota themselves, and not activist judges or politicians, decide how our state will define marriage in the future.

Vote yes on marriage in November.

Chuck Darrell is the Minnesota for Marriage Director of Communications.