Who is the Harriet Tubman of gay marriage?: Problem with gay marriage vis-a-vis gov't interference is that conservatives will always want to legislate morality, and liberals will always want to create laws protecting the rights of people to do whatever they want (of course the liberts just want tax cuts). Marriage is simply the most visible (perhaps after abortion) embodiment of that struggle. Each side views it as its moral duty to engage in the fight over who can marry whom. Conservatives figure that marriage is the last thing they have a strangle-hold on (since Tom is now free to bone Jim in whatever orifice he sees ummm fit), and so this is their Leningrad - the enemy is at the gate and it is in the form of two lumbering, sandle-wearing women with short hair and bad vests.