Hurry, Mr President! Stop me Before I Burn the Flag in my Assless Chaps*

First off, understand that I am not gay nor have ever desecrated the American flag...yet.

But if something isn't legislated soon, I don't know how long before I head down to my local leather shop to suit up and match Old Glory. "Old Glory." There you go. A few days ago I would have called the flag "The Stars and Stripes." Anyone with a scintilla of flag history behind them knows that the term "Old Glory" was coined by Navy Captain William Driver, a 19th-century ship master. Sailor. Ship. Do I have to draw you a Village People map?

Finally, our president and a solid 33% of our legislators are standing up for what is right, no matter how many of conservative core voters come out to vote Republican this November.

Thank you, Mr. Bush -- and Mr. Frist -- for standing up in support of the Federal Marriage Amendment. For if not passed, how soon before gay men who married each other would start having gay babies? How long before extremely well-built, extremely attractive men who know how to dress will be wasted on other men? How soon before gay women start marrying and stop having that hot single lesbian sex that straight men love to watch?

Those who mock the Constitutional amendment seem to have overlooked that the legislation does not say gays cannot marry. They just would not be able to marry each other. What is the big deal? I would have loved to marry Catherine Zeta Jones Douglas but that didn't work out. Should she have been forced to marry me when she was single? And for the most part I can't marry people who are already married to someone else. Should Michael Douglas be forced to make Catherine available to me now. Not likely. But do you hear me complaining about changing the law? I mean a law that I agree with.

There's no denying a slippery slope. If we allow a man to marry a man how soon before bisexuals will be allowed to marry each other. If we allow women to marry women, Mary Cheney may never have the opportunity to marry a man. How soon before Ellen marries the Dixie Chicks? And with all the men marrying men and women marrying women, the sanctity of marriage would suffer so immeasurably that there would leave little time or opportunity for Rush Limbaugh to keep getting married. Is that something future wives waiting to be future divorcees of el Rushbo would want?

We must focus on the country's vital objectives. The sooner we stop gays from marrying the sooner we can bring the troops home; the sooner we stop desecrating the flag, the sooner that the Homeland Security Department can become competent and keep bureaucracy from desecrating the safety of Americans at home.

Let us no longer let gays nor flag burners divide our country. Let's give that job to the Constitution.

*How that flag got into my assless chaps I'll never know.

Steve Young is author of " Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" and can be read every Sunday on the very straight L.A. Daily News opinion page...right on top of Bill O'Reilly's column.